Zelená Hora Castle

Grünberg Castle
	Grünberg Castle near Nepomuk
Alternative name (s):	Zámek Zelená Hora
Creation time :	13–15 century
Castle type :	Hilltop castle
Conservation status:	Preserved essential parts
Standing position :	Nobles, dukes
Construction:	bricked up
Place:	Klášter
Geographical location	49 ° 29 '49 " N , 13 ° 34' 53" E Coordinates: 49 ° 29 '49 " N , 13 ° 34' 53" E
Height:	536 m

The Zelená Hora Castle (German: Grünberg ) is an early Baroque building north of the city of Nepomuk in the Czech Republic . The listed building goes back to a castle. It became known through the Grünberg Alliance ( Zelenohorská jednota ) and the Grünberg manuscript . A waterworks, which is probably the oldest in Bohemia, served to feed the castle fountain.

geography

The castle is located one kilometer north of Nepomuk on the right side of the confluence of the Mihovka in the Úslava on the Zelená hora ( Green Mountain , 536 m) and belongs to the cadastre of the municipality of Klášter . In addition to the three-storey horseshoe-shaped castle with a tower in the east wing, there is the baroque Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and a historical warehouse.

history

The first written mention of the construction of a castle on Zelená hora came in 1221, when King Ottokar I Přemysl promised the abbot of the Nepomuk monastery that the monastery property would be exempted from labor for the construction of the new castles Teslín, Prácheň and Zelená Hora. This castle complex probably did not last long, and the mountain came into the possession of the monastery. It is believed that at that time there was a watchtower to protect the monastery on the mountain.

In 1419 the Hussite leader Nikolaus von Hus occupied the Green Mountain belonging to the monastery and had a fortified courtyard built as his seat, which he called Hora Olivetska ( Mount of Olives ). The Schwanberger fighting on the side of the emperor conquered the mountain shortly afterwards. After the destruction of the monastery by the troops of Jan Žižka , Emperor Sigismund transferred the rule of Pomuk to Bohuslav von Schwanberg on August 22, 1420 . He switched to the Taborites in 1422 during his captivity and died in 1425 during the siege of Retz Castle . The Pomuk rule was then transferred to the city of Klatovy .

After Bohuslav's brother Hynek Krušina von Schwanberg took over the inheritance in 1436, he began building a castle on the Green Mountain. This was completed in 1454 when Hynek Krušina died. In 1464 his son Bohuslav the Younger von Schwanberg sold the Grünberg estate to Zdenko von Sternberg . During this time he broke with his brother-in-law Georg von Podiebrad and switched to the side of the Catholic nobility. On November 28, 1465 the union of 16 important Bohemian noble families took place in the Black Hall of Grünberg Castle to form the Grünberg Alliance, which fought against Georg von Podebrady for five years. After the excommunication of Georg von Podiebrad by Pope Paul II , an assistance agreement between Emperor Friedrich III was signed on April 14, 1467 in the Grünberg Black Hall . and the Grünberg alliance for the deposition of Georg von Podiebrad as the Bohemian king and the leader of the alliance, Zdenko von Sternberg, appointed by Paul II on April 20, 1467 to lead the Catholics in the fight against the heretical king. Between 1476 and 1479 the castle was jointly owned by the four sons Jaroslav, Zdeslav, Jan and Jiří von Sternberg, who were able to regain lost property during this time. From 1479 on, Grünberg belonged to Zdenko's eldest son Jaroslav, who died in 1492.

In 1528 Zdeniek Lev von Rosental acquired Grünberg Castle. He was so indebted at his death that the rule from his estate was confiscated in 1536 and sold by the Bohemian Chamber to Adam von Sternberg. On February 4, 1558, Emperor Ferdinand I assigned the rule Grünberg in the land table as hereditary property.

Under Adam von Sternberg, what is probably the oldest waterworks in Bohemia was built, which pushed the water drawn from the former monastery mill into the well in the forecourt of the castle via a system of wooden pipes. In the years 1670 to 1688, Wenzel Adalbert von Sternberg had the castle complex converted into an early Baroque palace. In 1726 Leopold von Sternberg sold the property to Adolf Bernhard von Martinic . After the death of his father, he inherited the rule of Plánice and joined it to Grünberg. His daughter and future heir Maria Dominika gave birth to an illegitimate son after an affair with the lordly forester, whom her father killed and walled up in the chimney of the castle library. After the loss of her child, Maria Dominika entered the monastery of St. Anna in Vienna. Under their rule, settlement land was allocated to subjects as part of the raabization . In 1784 she appointed Franz de Paula Gundaker von Colloredo-Mansfeld as her heir in her will. In 1807 his son Hieronymus von Colloredo-Mansfeld followed as owner.

In 1817, while cleaning up the official archives, the retired manorial official Josef Kovář allegedly found a crumbled box containing two sheets of parchment with an old handwriting. This was deciphered by the Nepomuk dean František Boubel as an old Czech script from the 8th or 9th century. The so-called Grünberg manuscript was initially kept in the Nepomuk rectory and after the National Museum was founded in Prague in November 1818, it was anonymously sent to its founder, Franz Anton von Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky . About the authenticity of the signature and the same time during the period of the National Revival of the Czechs emerged Koniginhof handwriting was kindled from the mid-19th century, a heated argument. In the years 1886–1887, both manuscripts were declared by well-known scholars to be forgeries by the writer Václav Hanka . After scientific research in 1967 the proof of the forgery of both writings was made.

After the death of Hieronymus von Colloredo-Mansfelds, his son Franz de Paula used the palace from 1822 mainly as a hunting lodge. He died in 1852. The castle came to Vinzenz Karl von Auersperg through marriage . From 1867 it was used by his widow Wilhelmine as her main summer residence. The next owner was her son Engelbert Ferdinand von Auersperg. In 1902 Franz Ferdinand von Österreich-Este stayed at the castle and in 1904 the Bennett Hunt was held in honor of James Gordon Bennett , during which 20,000 partridges were shot down within a few days. In 1911 the castle was rebuilt. A large part of the large estate belonging to the castle was parceled out in the course of the land reform in 1921. Engelbert Ferdinand Auersperg sold the castle in 1931 to the Prague industrialists Karel and Marie Plavec. In 1938 MP Karel Blažek bought the castle. Due to tax debts, the castle was confiscated by the state in the same year.

After the German occupation, the castle was initially occupied by the Wehrmacht on March 15, 1939 and handed over to the Waffen-SS for use in the same year. The Waffen-SS set up the Sipo and SD radio school in the castle . The school existed from 1939 to 1945. After the Second World War, the castle, which had been abandoned by the Waffen-SS, was looted and the valuable inventory that still existed was relocated to other castles, churches and museums. A barracks for the Czechoslovak army was established in the Zelená Hora castle. From 1951 to 1957 a technical unit was stationed in the castle, in which the writer Miloslav Švandrlík also did his military service. The castle subsequently served as barracks until it was cleared by the army in 1990 and fell into disrepair. Reconstruction work was only carried out on the tower of the church between 1965 and 1966. The former chateau library is now owned by the Monuments Office for Western Bohemia in Plzeň.

After the Velvet Revolution , the castle was used as a filming location for the series of novels based on Miloslav Švandrlíks about the Černí baroni for the comedy film of the same name by Zdeněk Sirový . At the same time, parts of the series John Sinclair were shot by French filmmakers. In 1992 the castle was transferred to the Klášter municipality . The sale to an interested party willing to reorganize failed because of a restitution claim by the Plavec heirs, which was rejected in 1993 by the Plzeň District Court. Then, with the support of the Plzeň Monuments Office, the municipality began repairing the roof. In 2001 a license agreement was signed with the owner of the company Janterai International sro, Frank-Rainer Telemann, which includes a future sale. The castle is currently being renovated and converted into a hotel and the company's headquarters. The work should be completed in 2013. Due to the start of the general reconstruction, the castle will probably not be accessible from 2009.

Web links

Commons : Zelená Hora Castle - collection of pictures, videos and audio files