Ziegenberg Castle

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The Keep (2010)
Goat mountain; in the Topographia Hassiae by Matthäus Merian (1655)

The Ziegenberg Castle is a castle on a mountain spur on the left of the river Usa above the local part Langenhain-Ziegenberg the town of Ober-Mörlen in Wetteraukreis in Hesse .

The baroque castle is a right-angled, two-winged complex. Of the former medieval castle , only the keep remains today.

history

The Mörler Mark , to which Ziegenberg also belonged, came in 1356 as an inheritance from the Lords of Eppstein to the Lords of Falkenstein .

In the imperial war of 1365/1366 against Philip VI. von Falkenstein, a "tower" that was probably built by the Lords of Eppstein was conquered by Frankfurt troops. Presumably in place of this fortification the Lords of Falkenstein had a new castle built from 1367. This was first mentioned in a document in 1388.

After the Lords of Falkenstein died out, the castle fell to the Lords of Eppstein-Münzenberg in accordance with the Butzbach Treaty of May 24, 1419. The brothers Gottfried and Johann von Eppstein-Münzenberg sold it to Count Philip I von Katzenelnbogen in 1478 . With his death in 1479, the male line of the Counts von Katzenelnbogen died out, and the castle was inherited by Landgrave Heinrich III through the marriage of his daughter Anna . from Hessen-Marburg , and finally in 1500 to the Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel . Landgraf Wilhelm II. Gave the castle with accessories as country Gräfliches fief , from male to male, eventualiter and female Succession, 1506 at Jost von Drach village (also Draxdorf or Traxdorf), the landgräflich-Hessian bailiff to Eppstein , then from 1514 to 1519 chief official of the Lower County Katzenelnbogen and finally Hessian court master and advice. The fiefdom also included the Ziegenberg valley with the Mühlenbann and other accessories, as well as slopes to Wernborn , Pfaffenwiesbach , Langenhain and Fauerbach . The landgrave, to whom Drachsdorf had returned his fiefdom in Veckerhagen and the promise of man money , reserved certain rights, including the right to redeem the fief with 2500 guilders , but this right to redemption was never used.

Drachsdorf's son-in-law Konrad (Kurt) Diede zum Fürstenstein continued the expansion of the Ziegenberg property with determination. In 1540 he had married Ottilia, the daughter of Jost von Drachsdorf, who had already died in 1529, and acquired it in 1557, after the death of the sons of Jost von Drachsdorf - partly as an inheritance from his wife, partly by paying 4,000 Reichstalers to his brothers-in-law Philipp and Marsilius von Reifenberg - the sole property of Ziegenberg. His descendant Hans Eitel Diede zum Fürstenstein , burgrave of Friedberg from 1745 to 1748 , had the castle converted into a baroque palace around 1747. With the death of Wilhelm Christoph Diede zum Fürstenstein in 1807, the family died out, and the property passed to the Counts of Rantzau through inheritance . They sold these in 1896 to the Passavant - Gontard family from Frankfurt , who used the complex as a summer residence.

In 1937/1938 the family ceded the facility to the German Reich . From 1939 onwards, the German Wehrmacht built extensive bunker systems in the complex (see Adlerhorst headquarters ). In September 1944, the Battle of the Bulge was led from here by Field Marshal von Rundstedt . In March 1945 the castle was largely destroyed by American fighter bombers.

Todays use

Partially restored, the complex was completely converted into condominiums in 1992/1993.

literature

Coordinates: 50 ° 22 ′ 0.9 ″  N , 8 ° 37 ′ 29.8 ″  E