Steinburg (Holstein)

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Stone castle
Location of the stone castle in April 2010

Location of the stone castle in April 2010

Alternative name (s): nd. Steenborch
Creation time : shortly after 1300
Castle type : Niederungsburg, built as a tower hill castle with a permanent house
Conservation status: Burgstall, restored castle hill with defensive moat preserved in 1984
Place: Süderau- Steinburg
Geographical location 53 ° 50 '32.7 "  N , 9 ° 33' 40.7"  E Coordinates: 53 ° 50 '32.7 "  N , 9 ° 33' 40.7"  E
Steinburg (Schleswig-Holstein)
Stone castle

The stone castle is a defunct , probably built in the years after 1300 Niederungsburg , which was first mentioned in a document in 1307. It was located in today's district of Steinburg in the municipality of Süderau in the Steinburg district named after it . The only thing that reminds of the old stone castle today is the listed ensemble of the castle hill, surrounded by an alder wreath and the moat, north of the national road 112.

Construction, administrative headquarters and demolition

Administrative seat of the bailiff

The stone castle was built as the administrative center of the Kremper Marsch, which was diked and populated since the beginning of the 13th century . Their new settlers were free farmers who, in terms of taxes, law, militarily and politically, were subject to the rule of the Counts of Schauenburg and Holstein . In 1238, for example, a Vogt of Count Adolph IV with seat at Itzehoer Burg is mentioned, who is responsible for the Wilstermarsch and the Kremper Marsch. The governors received their office as a hereditary fief . After conflicts with the count's sovereigns, the castle bailiff was appointed by the respective sovereign from the second half of the 14th century .

After the Kremper Marsch was separated from the Kiel line, Count Johann II zu Kiel had a Vogt Nicolaus in 1293, who was known as "advocatus in palude". If there are no sources on this, it can be assumed that it was precisely this Johann II who initiated the construction of the stone castle. 1307 were named in a document as belonging to the Vogtei: Hohenfelde , Horst (Holstein ), Neuenbrook , Krempe , Neuenkirchen, Borsfleth , Süderau , Heiligenstedten and Bole (submerged in an Elbe flood in 1412/3).

Strategic task of the fortress

Located at the transition from the Geest to the Marsch, the stone castle was strategically positioned on the old road that led from Hamburg to Itzehoe on the edge of the Elbeurstromtal and crossed the Kremper Au, which was still navigable at the time. On the Grevenkoper river side, the road was closed by a barrier known as the “Rönnebaum” , on which road tolls were probably also levied.

In times of war, the fortress of the stone castle with ramparts and weir ditches acted as a road barrier, military base of the sovereign and, if necessary, as a protective and refuge for the population from approaching enemy troops.

Construction and development of the stone castle

Views of the stone castle have not survived. However, indications of the shape of the castle can be derived from the remains of the square foundation with 40 m measuring outer walls, which consisted of boulders firmly cast with Segeberger lime. These were completely salvaged by the then owner in 1884 and subsequently sold for the construction of the highway.

A middle, east-west dividing line in the floor plan made of stones of the same kind reveals that the entire building was composed of two adjacent, interconnected houses ( semi-detached house ), the gables of which faced the Kremper Au. The stone castle probably owes its name to the rock foundations. Above them, the two-storey main building was built from bricks as a permanent house . The porter's apartment, archive, office, prison, servants' living quarters and storage rooms were on the ground floor, while the bailiff's apartment occupied the first floor.

This house was built in the design of the Motte (tower hill castle) centrally on the 60 m wide castle hill, which was surrounded by a 4 m wide inner moat. An access bridge crossed it from the south. In front of the moat was an earth wall, which was secured to the outside by another moat. The castle gate in the wall and the wooden bridge were on the west side of the castle on the narrow land between the Au and the moat.

In addition, the castle had an area of ​​approx. 250 hectares that was supposed to ensure the maintenance of the crew. In addition to this there was an inn and a mill as well as a ship turning area in the Au. The peasants of the march were obliged to work on the castle, to maintain the works and to dig the trenches.

Office Steinburg

Served as the Schauenburger Duke Adolph died VIII in 1459 without Erbnachfolger which Steinburg went to his nephew, the Danish King Christian I , above. After this in 1460 in the Treaty of Ribe had taken over the country's domination of the Bailiwick Steinburg to the Official Steinburg with each appointed by the king was bailiff . Its responsibility encompassed the entire general administration (such as the police, infrastructure and dykes, etc.) as well as the judiciary, taxation and military.

In the period that followed, the stone castle experienced various changes.

  • After a good 160 years of existence, the stone castle was in such poor condition that repairs seemed inevitable. That is why the Hamburgers, as the pawnbrokers at that time, received a royal power of attorney from Christian I on November 7th, 1469 to thoroughly repair the castle at his own expense. But the decline was greater than originally thought. On September 1, 1470, the king allowed the Hamburg pawnbrokers to break down the castle and rebuild it according to their will, for which he made a total of 4,000 marks available. The differences to the previous construction are not known.
  • In 1508 Duke Friedrich had the castle fortified. The farmers of the Kremper and Wilstermarsch had to do manual and tensioning services, the cities of Krempe, Itzehoe and Wilster supported the project with voluntary financial contributions. The extent to which this measure was compared to the previous state is not known. However, it shows that the stone castle still had an important strategic military position at that time.
  • In 1555 the structural condition of the stone castle seems to have been desolate again, because when Jürgen von Ahlefeldt zu Stellau was appointed bailiff on April 3, he was assigned the town of Krempe as his place of residence. During this time the office was named after the city of Krempe. The stone castle was only continued as a Vorwerk.
  • In 1576 the bailiff Josias von Qualen received the order to rebuild the stone castle. This was done on the old foundation. The new building had a stately appearance and also received an octagonal stair tower on the northwest corner. This was the only down-to-earth tower. Later we speak of 3 towers. The other two, if they existed, must have been roof turrets. The king had rooms reserved for himself and the queen.
  • At the beginning of the Imperial (Thirty Years) War, Detlev Rantzau was bailiff at the Steinburg. Until January 1626 his decrees were issued by the stone castle. Then the seat of the office was moved to Gut Drage.
  • On September 11, 1627, Wallenstein occupied the stone castle without difficulty during the Thirty Years' War. The imperial troops held the castle throughout the war and holed up there. An attempt at liberation by the Kremper fortress troops on March 29, 1628 was unsuccessful.
  • After the peace treaty, the castle was free again and obviously still habitable despite the occupation, so that Christian IV had a load of wood transported to the stone castle on July 6, 1630 - “for the sake of our court”. Letters from the bailiffs also came from the stone castle, but also from Drage. The official seat of the clerk Jacob Steinmann was still in the Steinburg in 1639.
  • On March 7, 1640, King Christian IV gave his Rendsburg bailiff Christian Rantzau, who later became the imperial count, permission to build a comfortable house on the Glückstadt Rethövel, for which he granted him numerous privileges. He gave the Count the stones from the demolition of the stone castle as building material. That is why the Rantzausche residence was called "the new stone castle" for a long time. In later times the building was converted into a breeding and madhouse.
  • After the castle was demolished around 1641-43, the Steinburg office was administered first from Glückstadt and then from Itzehoe.

Continuation as a ski jump

After the castle was demolished, the fortress was expanded into a ski jump. This formed the eastern corner of the Steinburger fortress triangle of Glückstadt, Krempe and the Steinburger Schanze. From the old building stock, some farm buildings and the Vorwerk had remained.

In the Danish-Swedish wars (1644/1658) it gained importance several times because it was able to control the main road from Hamburg to Itzehoe. It was occupied by Danish troops and was able to reject two Swedish advances in 1644. In the second Danish-Swedish war that followed, she suffered several raids.

In 1742 King Christian VI considered a modernization of the ski jumping facility and entrusted Christian Eberhard Detlev von Oetken with the development of proposals. There are 2 drawings from him that were not implemented, but their value is that they represent the current inventory to scale:

  • The outer wall of the hill had 4 bastions, of which the southern half bastions and the two northern simple pointed bastions.
  • This wall was surrounded by a 7.5 to 20 m wide, outer moat, which was preceded by a ravelin in the east. A drawbridge was used to cross the ditch on a very narrow strip of shore between the Kremper Au and the southwest bastion.
  • Inside, a ditch 8.5 to 16 m wide enclosed the old castle square, which formed a rounded square of 70 to 75 m and on which the powder tower stood. A bridge led over the southern section of the trench.
  • The water flow from the Kremper Au to the fortress moat was secured by a long moat in the east.

Neither plan was carried out. Instead, the demolition of the ski jump was ordered in 1763 and the land belonging to it was given in a time lease. The Vorwerk land had been leased 100 years earlier and sold in 1677.

Transfer of the name

View from July 2014

After the annexation of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein in the wake of the German-Danish and Prussian-Austrian wars (1864 and 1866), the duchies were incorporated into the state of Prussia as the province of Schleswig-Holstein in 1867 . On the basis of the "Ordinance concerning the organization of the district and district authorities, as well as the district representation in the province of Schleswig-Holstein" of September 22, 1867, the Steinburg office, the cities of Itzehoe, Wilster, Crempe and Glückstadt as well as numerous other localities became Steinburg district merged. In line with the new administrative structures, the office of the bailiff was replaced by that of the Royal Prussian District Administrator and the “Amt Steinburg” was renamed “Kreis Steinburg”.

Until it was expanded to include 17 communities in the former Rendsburg district as part of a regional reform in 1970, the Steinburg district remained within its boundaries set in 1867.

The seat of the district administration is still in Itzehoe.

literature

  • Adolph Halling: Castle and Office Steinburg and his officials , Glückstadt 1911.
  • Paul Holtorf: Chronicle of the Steinburg district 1307 to 1967 , Itzehoe 1967.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Adolph Halling: Castle and Office Steinburg and his officials . Glückstadt 1911, p. 8 .