Wölfelsdorf Castle

The Wölfelsdorf Castle ( Polish : Pałac w Wilkanowie ) is located in Wilkanów ( Wölfelsdorf ) in the powiat Kłodzki in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship in Poland. It was one of the largest and most important palace complexes in the County of Glatz and belonged to Count Althann from the second half of the 17th century until 1945 .

history

At the site of a former stronghold of the built Glatzer Governor Michael Wenzel of Althann 1661-1686 the Woelfel village castle. It was created according to a design by the architect Jacopo Carove and served as a summer residence. The palace was completed in 1701 under Michael Wenzel II von Althann. Around 1700 a baroque garden was laid out, which sloped in terraces to the Wölfel, with a water basin forming the main axis. Beyond the Wölfel was the larger part of the garden with an ornamental garden and a kitchen garden.

In the 1930s, the complex became increasingly neglected. During the Second World War, the palace was a relocation site for Berlin archives, including a. for Himmler's secret files that came from here to the Soviet military archive near Moscow. After it fell to Poland as a result of the war in 1945, along with almost all of Silesia , the castle complex was used by the communist agricultural production cooperative as a national property . A conversion to a hotel was canceled due to the political upheaval in 1989. In 1997 the top floor ceiling collapsed and destroyed the ballroom that had been preserved until then.

Building

Inside was a remarkable two-story ballroom with a flat dome designed by Frantz Bartsch. The castle had rich pilasters and a high mansard roof . Remains of the quarry stone walls of the previous moated castle can be seen in the outer masonry.

literature

Arne Franke (Hrsg.): Small cultural history of the Silesian castles. Volume 1. Bergstadtverlag Wilhelm Gottlieb Korn, 2015, pp. 301–302
Dehio -Handbuch der Kunstdenkmäler in Polen Silesia , Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich / Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-422-03109-X , pp. 1010-1011
Verlag Aktion Ost-West eV: The Glatzer Land . ISBN 3-928508-03-2 , p. 117

Web links

Commons : Palace in Wilkanów - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Single receipts

↑ Klaus Wiegrefe, DER SPIEGEL: Historians on Himmler diaries: "One of the worst mass murderers in history" - DER SPIEGEL - history. Retrieved April 2, 2020 .

50.247022 16.692123Coordinates: 50 ° 14 ′ 49.3 " N , 16 ° 41 ′ 31.6" E

[1] Klaus Wiegrefe, DER SPIEGEL: Historians on Himmler diaries: "One of the worst mass murderers in history" - DER SPIEGEL - history. Retrieved April 2, 2020 .