Marienburg high school
The Marienburg high school was a private boarding and day school with an attached boarding school for boys and girls in Thal near Rheineck in the canton of St. Gallen . The grammar school , originally founded by Steyler missionaries , is located in a castle complex , called Weinburg until 1929 , which primarily served the Princely House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as an autumn seat. In the summer of 2012, the boarding school and the school closed due to financial problems.
history
As the seat of the noble noble families (1419–1686), the Weinburg was of regional importance, as a country writing (1686–1772) it was federal and as the seat of the Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1817–1929) European importance.
The Landschreiberei was auctioned in 1772. It came into private hands, for example to the merchant Michael Schiess von Herisau. He had a new building built in 1796 and gave the castle the name Weinburg.
Weinburg under the Hohenzollern
In 1817, Karl von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1785–1853, Prince from 1831) bought the Weinburg for his wife Antoinette (1793–1847) for 18,000 guilders . The couple enjoyed traveling to Lake Constance and Lake Zurich . Antoinette, who grew up in the “grand monde” Paris, was entrusted with furnishing the property in French chic. With further land purchases, she was able to create “La petite France”, a large new garden and park that reminded her of her home in Cahors . The imperial court garden director Lenné received the garden plans for assessment and made a few corrections. The park, which included the rock face behind the castle, was equipped with many foreign trees and plants. The proximity to the Arenenberg , the residence of the future French emperor Napoléon III, played an important role for Antoinette, who lived Francophile and Francophone .
Under her son Karl Anton zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1811–1885, Prince from 1848), Bismarck's predecessor as Prime Minister of Prussia from 1858 to 1862, the park was redesigned again. His daughter Stephanie von Hohenzollern (1837-1859) received a sequoia tree from Queen Victoria of England in 1858 on the occasion of her wedding to King Pedro V of Portugal . It still stands in the park today as a mighty 40 meter high trunk, which represents the oldest sequoia tree in Switzerland. The park is one of the most important historical gardens in the Lake Constance region. The coat of arms of Prince Karl Anton as burgrave of Nuremberg and the emblem of the royal crown can still be seen on the wrought-iron entrance portal to the large park. In autumn, in particular, the prince tended to linger at the Weinburg “in the beautiful Rhine Valley” . He felt like half Swiss.
The Weinburg played an important passage in European history in connection with his sons Leopold von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1835–1905) and Karl Eitel Friedrich von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1839–1914). When Karl was elected Prince of Romania in a referendum in 1866, he traveled to Bucharest with a Swiss passport as Karl Hettingen, Particulier von Thal, in order to call himself Carol I from then on. In 1881 he was proclaimed king. As Carol I, he founded the dynasty of the Hohenzollern kings in Romania. Crucial phases in the negotiations for the Spanish throne took place in 1969 at the Weinburg. Leopold's candidacy is directly related to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/1871 .
Many crowned heads stayed as guests in the Weinburg: for example the kings of Bavaria and Saxony, Portugal and Romania as well as the German emperors Wilhelm I , Friedrich III. and Wilhelm II .
Marienburg high school
After the First World War , the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen house was impoverished, and Prince Friedrich von Hohenzollern (1891–1965) was forced to sell the Weinburg estate. The buyer was the Steyler Missionsgesellschaft (Societas Verbi Divini, SVD). On December 2, 1929, the purchase contract was concluded. One year later, the Weinburg was first opened as a mission school under the new name Marienburg. The middle school was followed by a theological seminar and finally a high school.
Over the years, five different new buildings were built: school, church, gym, transverse wing and high-rise (with the auditorium and the students' bedrooms). All new buildings come from the architect Burkart from St. Gallen. These gradually replaced the princely extensions and ancillary structures. In 1957, the Sternburg built by Captain Daniel Kunkler was demolished and the grammar school church was built in its place. The coat of arms of the Kunkler carved in stone with the year 1721 as well as the former inscription above the main portal of the castle are still preserved. You are in the cellar of the old wine castle.
Thanks to the many fathers and brothers who are active all over the world, the house has acquired a worldwide appeal. The Steyler missionaries also ran a boarding school with the Marienburg grammar school from 1930 to 1999. Until the end of the 1990s, Steyler was the sole provider of the grammar school. In 2000 the Marienburg Gymnasium received a new sponsorship: the boarding and day school has since been jointly supported by the Marienburg Gymnasium Foundation and Steyler missionaries. The "Marienburg Gymnasium Foundation" was launched in 1999. The foundation is supported by the Steyler missionaries and the Friends of the Marienburg High School.
A small community of Steyler missionaries still lives there. In the summer of 2012 the Marienburg high school closed its operations. The financing of the school could no longer be guaranteed because of the austerity package of the canton of St. Gallen and the withdrawal of the Steyler missionaries from the financing of the school.
Web links
literature
August Naef: Chronicle or Memories of the City and Landscape of St. Gallen . Verlag Friedrich Schulthers St. Gallen, 1867 ( full text in the Google book search).
annotation
- ^ From Paris to Krauchenwies - Princess Antoinette von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen . Lecture by Carmen Ziwes by the educational institute Krauchenwies on January 12, 2011 in the Krauchenwies parish home
- ↑ The trunk bears a plaque with the following inscription: "Wellingtonia gigantea, homeland America, gift from Queen Victoria of England 1858" .
- ↑ Marienburg high school closes Tagblatt online, article from October 22, 2011
Coordinates: 47 ° 28 ′ 27 " N , 9 ° 34 ′ 33" E ; CH1903: 761095 / 260352