Saaleck Castle

Saaleck Castle
Bad Kösen

Burg Saaleck
Saaleck Castle
Coordinates 51°06′35″N 11°42′04″E / 51.1096°N 11.7011°E / 51.1096; 11.7011Coordinates: 51°06′35″N 11°42′04″E / 51.1096°N 11.7011°E / 51.1096; 11.7011
Type hill castle
Code DE-ST
Height 172 m above sea level (NN)
Site information
Condition two towers, enceinte
Site history
Built before 1200
Garrison information
Occupants nobility, counts, commoners

Saaleck Castle (German: Burg Saaleck) lies only a few hundred metres from another castle, the Rudelsburg, further upstream on the Saale above Bad Kösen in the village of Saaleck in the district of Burgenlandkreis in Saxony-Anhalt. The hill castle adjoins the village that gave it its name to the south. The castle is now just a ruin and a popular tourist attraction. It is part of the designated tourist route Straße der Romanik ("Romanesque Road").

History

In 1922, two of the assassins of Walter Rathenau were spotted at the castle, whose owner was himself a secret member of the Organisation Consul. On July 17, they were confronted by two police detectives. While waiting for reinforcements during the stand-off one of the detectives fired at a window, unknowingly killing Kern by a bullet in the head. Fischer then took his own life.[1] The Nazis erected a memorial plate to them at the castle in July 1933.[2]

Description

The castle lies on a roof-shaped, west-facing muschelkalk ridge immediately south of the village of Saaleck, at a height of about 172 metres above sea level and is just under 23 metres high. The characteristic picture of the castle is dominated by its two bergfrieds, which have wall thicknesses of about 2 metres and are visible from a long way off. In the masonry of the west tower is a medieval garderobe and a stove that indicate where the residential level was. The centre of the castle was once surrounded by inner and outer defensive walls. By the inner wall are the remains of several domestic buildings. On the two narrow sides of the surrounding terrace were moats with ramparts in front of it. On the east side of the hill spur facing Rudelsburg there are more neck ditches, again guarded by ramparts.

Comparable castles with two round bergfrieds are Münzenberg, Hohandlau, Botenlaube and Thurant.

References

  1. Martin Sabrow (1994), Der Rathenaumord. Rekonstruktion einer Verschwörung gegen die Republik von Weimar, Munich: Oldenbourg, pp. 91–103, ISBN 978-3-486-64569-9, retrieved 27 July 2012
  2. Martin Sabrow (1998), "Erstes Opfer des "Dritten Reichs"?", Die Macht der Mythen: Walther Rathenau im öffentlichen Gedächtnis: sechs Essays, Berlin: Das Arsenal, pp. 90–91, ISBN 978-3-931109-11-0, retrieved 28 July 2012

Literature

History and construction:

On the history of the 19th and 20th centuries:

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