Saaleck Castle (german: Burg Saaleck) is a

hill castle A hill castle or mountain castle is a castle built on a natural feature that stands above the surrounding terrain. It is a term derived from the German ''Höhenburg'' used in categorising castle sites by their topographical location. Hill castles a ...

near

Bad Kösen Bad Kösen () is a spa town on the Saale river in the small wine-growing region of Saale-Unstrut, Germany. It is a former municipality in the Burgenlandkreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt. Bad Kösen has a population of around 5,300. Since 1 Janua ...

, now a part of

Naumburg Naumburg () is a town in (and the administrative capital of) the district Burgenlandkreis, in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Central Germany. It has a population of around 33,000. The Naumburg Cathedral became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018. ...

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making it the ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

. In 1922, two of the men who had killed

Walther Rathenau Walther Rathenau (29 September 1867 – 24 June 1922) was a German industrialist, writer and liberal politician. During the First World War of 1914–1918 he was involved in the organization of the German war economy. After the war, Rathenau ...

, the foreign minister of Germany, hid at Saaleck Castle but were tracked down by the police. The Nazi regime later put up a memorial plaque at the castle and turned their grave in Saaleck cemetery into a heroes' shrine. The castle is now mostly ruined, but its two towers feature small exhibits and it is a popular tourist attraction. Saaleck Castle is a stop on the designated

tourist route A scenic route, tourist road, tourist route, tourist drive, holiday route, theme route, or scenic byway is a specially designated road or waterway that travels through an area of natural or cultural beauty. It often passes by scenic viewpoints ...

''Straße der Romanik'' ("

Romanesque Road The Romanesque Road (german: Straße der Romanik) is a scenic route in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt in central-east Germany. It is part of the Transromanica network, a major European Cultural Route since 2006. Route The route takes the f ...

").

Geography

Saaleck Castle is located in the village of Saaleck in the district of

Burgenlandkreis Burgenlandkreis is a district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Its area is . History The district was established as Landkreis Burgenland by the merger of the former Burgenlandkreis and Landkreis Weißenfels as part of the reform of 2007. On 16 ...

in the German state of

. It overlooks the

Saale The Saale (), also known as the Saxon Saale (german: Sächsische Saale) and Thuringian Saale (german: Thüringische Saale), is a river in Germany and a left-bank tributary of the Elbe. It is not to be confused with the smaller Franconian Saale, ...

river and is only a few hundred metres from another castle, the

Rudelsburg The Rudelsburg is a ruined hill castle located on the east bank of the river Saale above Saaleck, a village in the borough of Naumburg in the county of Burgenlandkreis in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The Rudelsburg was built in the Middle Ages by t ...

. Since 2010, Bad Kösen and with it Saaleck Castle has been part of the municipality of

History

In 1922, two of the assassins of German foreign minister

were spotted at the castle, whose owner was himself a secret member of the ''

Organisation Consul Organisation Consul (O.C.) was an ultra-nationalist and anti-Semitic terrorist organization that operated in the Weimar Republic from 1920 to 1922. It was formed by members of the disbanded Freikorps group Marine Brigade Ehrhardt and was respons ...

''. On 17 July 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 Erwin Kern with a bullet in the head. Hermann Willibald Fischer then took his own life. The Nazis erected a memorial plate to them at the castle in July 1933. Under East Germany’s communist regime, the complex served as a residential care home for the elderly. From 1995 until 2019, it was not used. The Marzona Foundation acquired the property in 2018 and the German government has approved a grant of 7 million euros towards the site’s renovation. The Design Academy Saaleck plans to offer six-month stipends to work on individual and joint projects with a special focus on climate, sustainability and new technologies to 16 emerging designers, craftspeople or architects from around the world each year.Catherine Hickley (November 8, 2019)
Collector Egidio Marzona buys eastern German castle to host design academy
''

The Art Newspaper ''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments ...

''.

Description

The castle lies on a roof-shaped, west-facing

muschelkalk The Muschelkalk (German for "shell-bearing limestone"; french: calcaire coquillier) is a sequence of sedimentary rock strata (a lithostratigraphic unit) in the geology of central and western Europe. It has a Middle Triassic (240 to 230 million yea ...

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

bergfried ''Bergfried'' (plural: ''bergfriede''; English: ''belfry''; French: ''tour-beffroi''; Spanish: ''torre del homenaje'') is a tall tower that is typically found in castles of the Middle Ages in German-speaking countries and in countries under German ...

s, 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 Garderobe is a historic term for a room in a medieval castle. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' gives as its first meaning a store-room for valuables, but also acknowledges "by extension, a private room, a bed-chamber; also a privy". The word der ...

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 ditch A neck ditch (german: Halsgraben), sometimes called a throat ditch,
at www.roadstoruins.com. Accessed on 3 Jan 2012. is a dry

es, again guarded by ramparts. Comparable castles with two round bergfrieds are

Münzenberg Münzenberg is a town in the Wetteraukreis district in Hesse, Germany. It is located 13 km north of Friedberg, and 16 km southeast of Gießen. Münzenberg Castle is located outside the town. Population development Born in Münzenber ...

, Hohandlau, Botenlaube and Thurant.

Gallery

CastleSaaleck.jpg, Saaleck Castle BurgSaaleck2.JPG, Saaleck Castle BurgSaaleck3.jpg, Saaleck Castle Burg Saaleck.JPG, View of the castle from

References

History and construction: * Hansjürgen Brachmann: ''G 17 Bad Kösen, Kr. Naumburg (Bez. Halle)''. In: Joachim Herrmann (ed.): ''Archäologie in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Denkmale und Funde'', Urania-Verlag, Leipzig, 1989, ; Licensed production by Theiss-Verlag, Stuttgart 1989, , pp. 815 ff. * Reinhard Schmitt: ''Zum Stand der Bergfriedforschung in Saxony-Anhalt''. In: ''Burgenforschung aus Saxony'' 3/4, 1994, pp. 143–178. * Reinhard Schmitt: ''Bad Kösen. Rudelsburg, Saaleck, Romanisches Haus'' (Große Baudenkmäler Heft 457)- 3rd edition, Munich/Berlin 1996, pp. 2–15. * Reinhard Schmitt: ''Burgen des hohen Mittelalters an der unteren Unstrut und um Naumburg. Zum Stand der Forschung.'' In: ''Burgen um Freyburg und Naumburg''. Burgen und Schlösser in Saxony-Anhalt Sonderheft. Halle/Saale 1996, pp. 6–48, especially pp. 18 ff. * Reinhard Schmitt: ''Burg Saaleck, Burgenlandkreis. Zur Geschichte und Baugeschichte''. In: ''Burgen und Schlösser in Saxony-Anhalt'' Vol. 15, 2006, , pp. 6–56. * Gerd Strickhausen: ''Burgen der Ludowinger in Thüringen, Hessen und dem Rheinland: Studien zu Architektur und Landesherrschaft im Hochmittelalter.'' (Quellen und Forschungen zur hessischen Geschichte Vol. 109.) Darmstadt tc. self-publication by the Hessische Historische Kommission, Darmstadt etc., 1998, , pp. 238 ff. (Strickhausen takes the view that the castle was not built until 1225 which is too late based on the surviving structure, c.f. R. Schmitt). On the history of the 19th and 20th centuries: * Kai Agthe: ''"Und ein Lied streicht durch die Hallen …". Burgen-Romantik am Beispiel von Rudelsburg und Saaleck.'' In: Palmbaum. Literarisches Journal aus Thüringen Vol. 10 Issue 2, 2002, pp. 7–14. * Rüdiger Haufe: ''"Die Geister der Burg Saaleck". Der "Burgherr" Hans Wilhelm Stein im Schnittpunkt von völkischer Bewegung und Heimatbewegung.'' In: ''Rudelsburg – Saaleck – Kyffhäuser''. Protokollband der wissenschaftlichen Tagungen 14 - 16 June 2002 in Bad Kösen and 13 - 15 June 2003 in Bad Frankenhausen (Deutsche Erinnerungslandschaften 1st entries of Regional- und Landeskultur Saxony-Anhalts 32). Landesheimatbund Saxony-Anhalt e.V., Halle/Saale, 2004, , pp. 50–72. * Jürgen John: ''Zeitgeschichte und Erinnerungskultur. Grandaspekte und ein Fallbeispiel: die Erinnerungslandschaft Rudelsburg-Saaleck''. In: Ramona Myrrhe (Hrsg.): ''Geschichte als Beruf. Demokratie und Diktatur, Protestantismus und politische Kultur'' (Celebratory article on the 65th birthday of Klaus Erich Pollmann). Stekovics, Halle/Saale, 2005, , pp. 121–138. * Rüdiger Kutz: ''Die Rudelsburg als Symbolort der Kösener Corpsstudenten''. In: ''Rudelsburg – Saaleck – Kyffhäuser''. Protokollband der wissenschaftlichen Tagungen 14 - 16 June 2002 in Bad Kösen and 13 - 15 June 2003 in Bad Frankenhausen (Deutsche Erinnerungslandschaften 1st entries of the Regional- und Landeskultur Saxony-Anhalts 32). Landesheimatbund Saxony-Anhalt e.V., Halle/Saale, 2004, , pp. 103–125.

External links