Gatehouse Dölitz
The Torhaus Dölitz is the structural remainder of an aristocratic residence, the Dölitz Castle in the village of Dölitz, which today belongs to Leipzig . Large parts of the Dölitz Castle and with it the gatehouse were built in the last third of the 17th century. The gatehouse contains a pewter figure museum whose collection, with around 100,000 pewter figures, is one of the three largest publicly accessible worldwide.
history
The manor Dölitz was owned by the von Winckler family from Leipzig for almost 300 years .
The castle was acquired, renovated and rebuilt in 1636 by Georg Winckler (1582–1654), merchant in Leipzig and ancestor of the family. He was in 1650 by Emperor Ferdinand III. ennobled. The family owned extensive estates in the area, including towns and manors. Later it is said to have been raised to the status of the barons of Schwendendorf via Johann Benedict Winckler .
The gatehouse of the castle was built between 1670 and 1672 by Andreas von Winckler, a son of Georg Winckler. Architecturally, it marks the transition from the Saxon late Renaissance to the Saxon early Baroque . The palace itself was a three-story four-wing complex with an inner courtyard, which was surmounted by an octagonal roof turret with a baroque dome. The gatehouse was on an island formed by two arms of the Pleißemühlgraben . Today only the eastern ditch is preserved. The entrance can be reached from the east via a wooden bridge.
During the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig , Dölitz Castle was a French headquarters and fiercely contested. Austrian troops tried several times to storm the facility, but were beaten back by the French until they retreated unhindered on the night of October 18-19, 1813. The gatehouse of the former Dölitz Castle is the last remaining building that played an important role in the course of the Battle of the Nations.
The Dölitz manor was acquired by the city of Leipzig in 1929. During the Second World War , the castle was badly damaged in an air raid in 1944. Because of this, the main building was blown up and demolished in 1947. The still-preserved manor barn fell victim to a fire in 1953. It was right next to the gatehouse that could be saved from the fire. The building was still inhabited in the 1950s, but it was becoming increasingly dilapidated. In 1959, the GDR Institute for the Preservation of Monuments began restoring the building. Traces of the Battle of the Nations, such as cannon balls, also disappeared under the newly applied exterior plaster. However, some of it has been visible again since a recent renovation in the 1990s.
Tin Figure Museum
In 1958, a specialist group of the Kulturbund der GDR set up a cultural and historical exhibition in the rooms of the gatehouse building. In February 1960, the exhibition of cultural and historical tin figures was opened and has been looked after by the Kulturbund ever since. After reunification , the association Zinnfigurenfreunde Leipzig eV was founded from the specialist group of the Kulturbund. Until 1998, the association was able to lease the site of the former manor at Dölitz from the city of Leipzig . From 1998 to 2014 the working group "Liberation War 1813" Finsterwalde eV took over the lease and maintenance of the site and the listed buildings. Since July 2014, the area and the buildings have been managed by the traditional association “Verband Jahrfeier Völkerschlacht bei Leipzig 1813 eV”.
The association Zinnfigurenfreunde Leipzig eV has since been entrusted with the supervision of the well-known tin figure exhibition with the focus on the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig. The historical diorama of the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig, which was inaugurated in 1913 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the battle, was taken over by the association from the Leipzig City History Museum in 2000 . The diorama was then revised with around 12,000 figures and has since been part of the exhibition in Torhaus Dölitz. Since then, the Torhaus Dölitz has also been called the “Pewter Figure Museum”. A total of 100,000 pewter figures are now part of the Pewter Figure Museum. In addition to the battle of nations, the tin figure museum also offers special exhibitions, for example on the subject of the First World War .
Location and events
Today the gatehouse located in the Goethepark belongs to the agra-Park and is directly adjacent to the agra exhibition and trade fair grounds of the former agra agricultural exhibition (Markkleeberg) . Thus, the gatehouse surrounded by forest and park is part of the Markkleeberg local recreation area. Due to its importance in the Battle of Nations, the area is often used as a setting for army camps battle reenactments. Every year at Pentecost, the tents of the pagan village, the large medieval market of the Wave-Gotik-Treffen , are pitched on the gatehouse grounds. This is also accessible to non-festival visitors for a fee.
literature
- Horst Immisch: Dölitz . PRO Leipzig Verlag, Leipzig, 2002.
- L. Schmidtchen, W. Brock: 100 years of German collector history (s) from a Leipzig perspective . Zinnfigurenfreunde Leipzig eV, Leipzig, 2001.
- Helmuth Gröger: Dölitz Castle . In: Burgen und Schlösser in Sachsen , Heimatwerk Sachsen, 1940, p. 83
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Dölitz, a historical and urban planning study , Pro Leipzig 2008
- ↑ Ernst Heinrich Kneschke, New General German Adels Lexicon , Volume 8, 1868, p. 408
- ^ Association Anniversary Völkerschlacht bei Leipzig 1813 eV , accessed on May 29, 2012
Coordinates: 51 ° 17 ′ 15 ″ N , 12 ° 23 ′ 16 ″ E