Location: near Dresden, Saxony Map
Open: Apr- Sep 9 am- 8 pm
Oct 9 am- 6 pm
Nov- Mar 9 am- 5 pm
Last admission: hour before closing time.
Closed: 24 December.
The Fortress closes at 3.30 p.m. on 31 December.
Cost: Adults € 6.00
Family ticket € 15.00
Mini family ticket € 9.00
Festung Königstein is a medieval citadel located on the hill overlooking River Elbe valley below near Dresden, Saxony in Germany. Festung Königstein is a medieval citadel located on the hill overlooking River Elbe valley below near Dresden, Saxony in Germany. The plateau of Festung Königstein covers 9.5 hectares of land that rise to the height of 240 meters above Elbe Valley. Despite its impressive size it became especially famous as a prison for many political and ideological enemies of the state including Frank Wedekind, Russian anarchist Michael Bakunin, Social democrat August Bebel and many others During both World Wars Kongstein Fortress was transformed into a concentration camp for the soldiers and officers captured by the German military.
Building history of the fortress
Probably the
oldest written mention of a castle on the Königstein can be found in
a document from King Wenzel I of Bohemia from 1233, in which a
"Burgrave Gebhard vom Stein" is mentioned as a witness. The medieval
castle belonged to the Kingdom of Bohemia. The first full name
“Königstein” was given in the Upper Lusatian border document of
1241, which Wenzel I sealed “in lapide regis” (Latin: on the king's
stone). In this document, the demarcation between the Slavic Gauen
Milska (Upper Lusatia), Nisan (Dresden Elbe valley basin) and Dacena
(Tetschner area) was regulated. Since the Königstein was to the left
of the Elbe, it was independent of the three districts mentioned. As
part of the Kingdom of Bohemia, the more intensively the Elbe was
used as a trade route, the more intensively the Elbe was used as a
trade route, on behalf of the Bohemian kings, it was expanded into a
permanent place dominating the north of their possessions and
outpost of the strategically important Dohna Castle in the
neighboring Müglitztal.
After the king and later emperor
Charles IV had the castle Eulau in Jílové u Děčína, which dominates
the southern area, destroyed by citizens from Aussig in 1348, he
stayed on the Königstein from August 5 to 19, 1359 and signed
shipping privileges. The castle was pledged several times over the
next 50 years, including those of Winterfeld and Donins. Since the
latter family was one of the enemies of the Margrave of Meißen, this
finally conquered the castle in 1408 during the Dohna feud, which
had been going on since 1385. But it was not until April 25, 1459,
with the Treaty of Eger, that the Saxon-Bohemian border and thus the
Transfer of the Königstein to the Margraviate of Meißen was
determined. In contrast to other rock castles in Saxon Switzerland,
the Königstein was still used for military purposes by the Saxon
dukes and electors. The Königstein remained an episode as a
monastery. Duke George the Bearded, a staunch opponent of the
Reformation, founded a Coelestine monastery on the Koenigstein in
1516, the Monastery of Praise of the Miracles Mariae, which was
closed again in 1524 - after the death of Duke George, Saxony became
Protestant.
The late medieval castle
There was probably a
stone castle on the Königstein as early as the 12th century. The
oldest structure still in existence today is the castle chapel built
at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. The outer walls of a
residential tower-like building on a square floor plan, which have
been preserved in the main wing of the Georgenburg, date from the
14th century. A courtyard completed the small complex.
This
castle from the time of Charles IV was extended to the south by Duke
George the Bearded around 1500 with a wing and stair tower, which
has also been preserved in the current building.
Between 1563
and 1569, the 152.5 meter deep well inside the castle was sunk into
the rock - until then the Königstein's crew had to rely on water
from cisterns and rainwater. During the construction of the well, in
addition to the sunk rock, an amount of water of eight cubic meters
had to be removed from the shaft every day.
Expansion into a
fortress and an electoral pleasure palace
Between 1589 and
1591/97, Elector Christian I of Saxony and his heirs had the castle
expanded into the strongest fortress in Saxony. The electoral kit
master Paul Buchner, who also built other court buildings and
fortifications for Christian I. Table Mountain, which was still
quite rugged until then, was closed off all around with high walls
with parapets and round observation towers. As a fortress determined
by the terrain, the complex was rather untypical for the
Renaissance. The Strasbourg fortress building theorist Daniel
Specklin was primarily concerned with this type of building.
As a new building, the gatehouse with its three-wing facade
receding over the new fortress gate was built on the Königstein, and
as a connecting structure between the older Georgenburg and the new
gatehouse, the weir to defend the gate. The gatehouse, built from
1589 to 1591, consisted of a central wing over a newly created
driveway as the main entrance to the fortress and two angled wings.
Two basement levels extended under the gatehouse, the upper one of
which was the new entrance gate, which was higher than it is today.
The front fortress portal has not been preserved, unlike the rear
portal by Paul Buchner with its rustic cushion frame. In 1591 the
anti-fire weir was built, which required large substructures to
close a crevice in which five casemates with loopholes for cannons
were built. The gatehouse and the defense weir were to expand the
space for accommodating the electoral court on the upper floors.
Rooms for the electoral couple and high-ranking officers were
planned here, and were fitted with chimneys as early as 1590.
Furthermore, from 1589 to 1591 two pleasure houses were built as
central buildings. The Christiansburg (today: Friedrichsburg) and
the pleasure house on the king's nose. Christian I had both
buildings built so that celebrations could also be held here. The
Christianusburg has casemates with notches for the use of firearms
in the basement and ballrooms on the two upper floors. Today it is
preserved as a baroque reconstruction.
For military purposes,
Paul Buchner built the old armory in 1594 and the guard house, today
the old barracks, in 1598.
In 1605 the old castle in the
north was rebuilt and adapted to the new buildings in the south
above the gate. The building received new dwelling houses, vaults on
the ground floor and a stone arcade following the older Wendelstein.
However, the building was only inaugurated under Elector Johann
Georg I in 1619 and was given the name Johann-Georgenburg.
Behind the gate, the Magdalenenburg was built as a free-standing,
larger pleasure palace on an elongated floor plan from 1622 to 1622,
and in 1631 the Johannissaal as a ballroom above the gateway.
The fortress of the baroque period
The time after the Thirty
Years' War can be seen as the second construction phase.
To
improve the defense, Wolf Caspar von Klengel built the Johann
Georgen bastion in front of the Georgenburg from 1667 to 1669.
On the area of the Romanesque castle chapel, the St. George's
Chapel was built under Duke George the Bearded as early as 1515,
next to which a monastery was to be established. It was rebuilt in
1591 by Paul Buchner the Elder and in 1631 by his son (roof cornice)
and again changed and refurbished (tower, roof, altar, pulpit) by
Wolf Caspar von Klengel from 1671 to 1676.
The fortress
entrance, which was lowered between 1729 and 1735, then received the
two works presented in order to better protect the entrance.
From 1722 to 1725, at the request of August the Strong, Böttcher and
Küfer built the large Königstein wine barrel with a capacity of
249,838 liters in the Magdalenenburg cellar. The cost was 8,230
thalers, 18 groschen and 9 pfennigs. The barrel, which was only once
completely filled with country wine from the Meißner Pflege, had to
be removed again in 1818 because it was dilapidated.
Adjustments in the 19th century after the court was abandoned
Even after the expansion in these periods of time, conversions and
new buildings were made on the spacious plateau. The Johannissaal,
built in 1631, was converted into the New Armory in 1816. In 1819
the Magdalenenburg was converted into a provisions magazine that was
fortified from being shot at. The old provisions store was set up as
a barracks. The treasure house was built from 1854 to 1855. After
the fortress was integrated into the fortress system of the new
German Empire in 1871, battery walls with eight gun emplacements
were built between 1870 and 1895, which should have served as an
all-round defense of the fortress in the event of an attack, which
never occurred. This was also the last extensive construction work
on the fortress.
Military importance of the fortress
The fortress played an
important role in the history of Saxony, albeit less through
military events. The Saxon dukes and electors used the fortress
primarily as a safe haven in times of war, as a hunting and pleasure
palace, but also as a dreaded state prison. The actual military
importance was rather minor, although generals like Johann Eberhard
von Droste zu Zützen (1662-1726) commanded it. During the Seven
Years' War, Elector Friedrich August II could only watch helplessly
from Königstein as his army surrendered without a fight to the
Prussian army at the foot of the Lilienstein on the other side of
the Elbe right at the beginning of the war in 1756. The commandant
of the fortress had been Lieutenant General Michael Lorenz von Pirch
from the Electorate of Saxony since 1753. The battle at
Krietzschwitz took place in front of their gates in August 1813, an
important preliminary decision of the Battle of Kulm and the Battle
of the Nations near Leipzig. Later commanders were Lieutenant
General Karl (1767–1838) and Konstantin von Nostitz-Drzewiecky
(1786–1865).
In October 1866, the Prussian Major General
Alexander von Rohrscheidt (1808–1881) was appointed commandant of
the fortress, and in 1870 the Prussian Major General Louis von
Beeren (1811–1899) took over. The Prussians then handed the
commandant over to the Saxon Major General Bernhard von Leonhardi
(1817–1902). The military importance was lost with the development
of extensive artillery at the end of the 19th century. The last
commandant of Königstein Fortress was Lieutenant Colonel Heinicke
until 1913. In wartime, the fortress had to house the Saxon state
reserves and secret archives. In 1756 and 1813, Dresden's art
treasures were also stored on the Königstein. The fortress'
extensive casemates were also used for such purposes during World
War II.
The fortress was never taken, it had too much of a
deterrent reputation after the expansion by Elector Christian I.
Only the chimney sweep Sebastian Abratzky climbed the vertical
sandstone walls in a crevice in 1848. The Abratzky chimney named
after him (difficulty level IV according to the Saxon difficulty
scale) can still be climbed today. Since climbing over the wall is
forbidden, you have to abseil again below the final wall.
The
fortress as a prison
Until 1922 the fortress was the most famous
state prison in Saxony. During the Franco-Prussian War and both
World Wars, the fortress was also used as a prisoner-of-war camp.
Polish, French, British, Dutch and American prisoners of war were
interned between 1939 and 1945, with the camp being run as Oflag
IV-B. After the Second World War, the Red Army used the fortress as
a military hospital. From 1949 to 1955 it was used by youth welfare
in the GDR as a so-called youth work center to re-educate offenders
who did not fit into the image of socialist society.
Prisoners at Königstein Fortress (selection)
Nikolaus Krell
1591–1601, Electoral Saxon Chancellor
Wolf Dietrich von
Beichlingen 1703–1709, electoral Saxon grand chancellor and high
court marshal, for insulting majesty
Franz Conrad Romanus
1705–1746, Mayor of Leipzig
Johann Friedrich Böttger 1706–1707,
co-inventor of European porcelain alongside Tschirnhaus
Johann
Reinhold von Patkul 1706–1707, Livonian statesman
Karl Heinrich
Graf von Hoym 1734–1736, Electoral Saxon Cabinet Minister, committed
suicide in his cell
Friedrich Wilhelm Menzel, 1763–1796, Saxon
civil servant and betrayer of state secrets
Bernhard Moßdorf
1831–1833, Saxon lawyer and author of a representative draft
constitution
Michail Alexandrowitsch Bakunin 1849–1850, Russian
anarchist and revolutionary
August Bebel 1872–1874, German
politician, SPD chairman
Thomas Theodor Heine 1899, caricaturist
and painter
Frank Wedekind, 1899–1900, writer and actor
Henri
Giraud 1940–1942, French general, managed to escape from the
fortress
Gustave Mesny 1940–1945, French major general
Augustín Malár 1944–1945, Slovak general
Henri Winkelman
1941–1945, Dutch general
The fortress as an open-air museum
of military history
On May 29, 1955, the Ministry of Culture of the GDR took over the
Königstein Fortress and declared it a museum. In the following
decades, despite great organizational difficulties, the following
buildings could be made usable: Old Armory, New Armory, Fountain
House, Treasury, Old Barracks, Georgenburg, Magdalenenburg,
Friedrichsburg, ammunition loading systems for batteries VII and
VIII as well as war barracks I and III.
In the 1960s, the GDR
converted a war powder magazine, the Saalkasematte, into a bunker
for civil defense: an emergency power generator, ventilation,
waterworks and gas-tight doors were installed. The “hall” was
structurally divided into work rooms. Between 1967 and 1970, an
elevator approved for 42 people was installed at the foot of the
access path. This elevator has two intermediate stations (adventure
restaurant and casemates) and, as a freight elevator, can transport
vehicles up to 4.5 tons.
In 1991 the Königstein Fortress
became the property of the Free State of Saxony and has been
extensively renovated since then. In 2005, a second elevator was
built on a vertical outer wall of the fortress, which transports a
maximum of 18 passengers in a panoramic cabin to a height of about
42 meters. There is a covered waiting area at the foot. The state of
Saxony provided 1.7 million euros for the construction. The
panoramic elevator went into operation at Easter 2006. Between 1991
and 2017, the Free State of Saxony invested around 66 million euros
in the renovation and expansion of Königstein Fortress.
The
museum has been operating as a GmbH since 2000, and has had
non-profit status since 2003. Since it opened, an average of half a
million visitors have come to Königstein Fortress every year. In
2019, a third of them came from Poland and the Czech Republic. The
fortress presents itself to visitors as a military-historical
open-air museum with numerous interior, permanent and special
exhibitions. Among other things, the Military History Museum of the
Bundeswehr Dresden is present in the two arsenals with exhibitions
of military history.
In 2018 the western development and in
2019 the Magdalenenburg will be renovated.
A new permanent
exhibition has been on view at Königstein Fortress since May 1,
2015. Under the title "In lapide regis - On the King's Stone", it
tells the almost 800-year history of the fortress from its
beginnings in the Middle Ages to the present for the first time. The
exhibition in the gatehouse and the strike weir comprises 33 rooms,
some of which are accessible for the first time.
Annual event
highlights at Königstein Fortress are the Carcassonne fan meeting in
February, the historical spectacle "The Swedes conquer Königstein"
in early summer (the occasion is the year 1639 when Swedish troops
moved from Pirna via Königstein to Bohemia; 300 uniform groups from
different federal states provide on the fortress with around one
hundred white tents represents a historical field camp), the sports
and outdoor event "Fortress Active!" in summer and the
historical-romantic Christmas market in Advent.