Warmsdorf Castle

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The north wing of Warmsdorf Castle

Warmsdorf Castle is a former castle in Warmsdorf in Saxony-Anhalt . It goes back to a medieval moated castle that the Protestant Prince George III. von Anhalt-Plötzkau was converted into a castle in the middle of the 16th century. Several listed buildings have been preserved from the palace complex . The oldest part is that of George III in 1552. North wing built on castle foundations ("Georgsbau"), which is now in ruins.

description

Gate entrance of the castle
Manor of the castle
Barrel vault on the ground floor of the north wing
The reconstructed St. George's Chapel in the palace gardens

The predecessor of the castle was built as a low castle with moats and ramparts at a river crossing of the Wipper . Today the facility is located on the northern edge of the Wipper floodplain . The castle was first documented in 1269, and it may have existed since the 10th century. In addition to the main castle with a keep from the 12th to 13th centuries, the round castle also included an outer castle with farm buildings.

Today there are still several historical buildings on the former castle grounds. The most important is that of George III. In 1552 the north wing of the palace was built, in which the princely apartments were located. It is a three-story quarry stone building with a barrel vault on the ground floor and remains of a round arch portal. At its core it is a Gothic house. Some of the windows date from around 1450. The triple arched curtain windows were built around 1520. Over time, the building was extended. In 1552 a second floor was added, which housed the prince's study with his precious book collection. Today it is part of the collection of the Anhalt State Library in Dessau .

To the south of the north wing is an elongated quarry stone building with a crooked hip roof . Another building is a small single-storey building with a half-timbered gable and a crooked hip roof at the northern entrance to the site. It could have been the gatehouse. Opposite is a two-storey farm building made of quarry stone and the quarry stone gate and brickwork, both from the 19th century. In the middle of the castle grounds there is a mansion in the classical style. It is a two-storey plastered brick building with a crooked hip roof from the early 19th century that has been converted for residential purposes since 2017. In the southern and western area of ​​the castle grounds there are larger farm buildings, green areas and ponds as well as the remains of ramparts.

The so-called Georgskapelle is located in the castle garden near the location of the no longer existing, old Warmsdorf church. This was where Prince George III's study was located, which he used from 1551 to 1553. In 1998 the building was in ruins and was rebuilt by 1999. Today there is a small exhibition about Prince Georg III.

history

The owners of Warmsdorf Castle, the predecessor of the castle, changed frequently. The previous owners included the Ilsenburg Monastery . In 1532 the castle complex came back into the possession of the Princes of Anhalt. After the division of the country in 1546, George III. Owner of the Warmsdorf office established in 1500 and also of the castle. From then on he had the medieval castle built into an early modern residential palace, where he spent some of the last years of his life. During the Dessau plague epidemic in 1552, Prince Joachim von Anhalt relocated the Anhalt-Dessau royal court to the palace for a short time.

The Warmsdorf office and with it the castle fell to the Principality of Anhalt-Köthen in a partition agreement in 1603 . The founder of modern pedagogy, Wolfgang Ratke , was held captive in the castle tower for nine months in 1619 because he was accused of heresy , deceit and belonging to the Rosicrucians . On March 27, 1623, a meeting of princes took place at Warmsdorf Castle. Parts of the palace and the palace gardens were redesigned in baroque style in the 18th century . From 1716 until the death of his brother and predecessor Leopold in 1728, the future Prince August Ludwig spent twelve years in Warmsdorf Castle. In 1847 the office and palace came to the Dessau line . The castle grounds were used as a domain in the 19th century .

In the time of the GDR there was a state-owned estate in the former Warmsdorf Castle . A distillery was operated in the north wing, which is still evidenced by a tall chimney. The buildings were badly neglected. In the 1960s, eliminated for safety reasons the medieval dungeon . The north wing of the castle, the so-called Georgsbau, remained as a ruin with an open roof and unsecured wall crown. In 2007, the Friends of Reformer Prince Georg III was founded in Warmsdorf . to save the north wing from further deterioration. In 2007, the sponsoring association had 64,000 euros at its disposal for the construction of an emergency roof, which was not implemented. Despite the great public interest, it has not yet been possible to secure the north wing with a roof (2017). The mansion will be renovated in 2017 for use as living space.

Web links

Commons : Schloss Warmsdorf  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Ute Hartling-Lieblang: Memory of a second-born prince ( Memento from August 4, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung . February 10, 2009.
  2. Backhus instead of a castle - in memory of Geo… In: Volksstimme . October 26, 2012.
  3. Statement of the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and Archeology Saxony-Anhalt : Warmsdorf Castle (LK Salzlandkreis): Construction of an emergency roof on the so-called Georgs wing by the “Förderverein Reformer Prince Georg III. eV "

Coordinates: 51 ° 46 ′ 44.3 "  N , 11 ° 34 ′ 53.9"  E