Location: Heidelberg Map
Constructed: 12th century
Tel. 06221 538 431
Official site
Open: 10am- 4pm Tue- Fri, 11am- 5pm Sat, Sun Apr- Oct
gardens 9am- 7:30pm, Apr- Oct, 9am- 4:30pm Nov- March
Entrance Fee: Adult Apr- Oct €8, Nov- Mar €6
Garden: Apr- Oct €4, Nov- March €2.5
Heidelberg Castle stands in the city of Heidelberg in Baden-
Württemberg region of Germany. Palace complex was built in several
steps and different architectural styles including Renaissance and
early Baroque (14th- 17th century). Heidelberg was abandoned after
fire in the 18th century. Its reconstruction began only in the late
19th century. Heidelberg Castle construction began in the late 12th
century on the orders of Conrad of Hohenstaufen. He later was made
Count of Palatine by his half- brother Frederick I Barbarossa. This
noble chose a strategic point on 300 feet high hill overlooking the
city. Original fortress was torn down to make its way for newer
buildings. Today the olderst part of the Heidelberg Castle are
towers Ruprehtsbau and Pulvertum that date back to the 14th century.
In the 16th century Elector Otto Heinrich built himself a
personal palace- residence. The height of levels was different so it
lookes out of sink with the earlier medieval castle. The ground
flood housed the festive hall. Now this part of the building houses
a German Pharmacy Museum.
Friedrich Palce is one of the
latest parts of the Heidelberg complex. It dates to the early 17th
century. It is decorated with magnificent statues of members of the
Wittelsbach family, including emperor Charlemagne.
Over
several centuries Heidelberg Castle was reconstructed several times
changing its layout. By the end of the Medieval times Heidelberg
Fortress was reconstructed as a residence for local noblemen rather
than a military stronghold. On 24 October 1688 French troops took
the castle, but next year they withdrew from the stronghold. Before
they left they blew up military fortifications including the Fat
Tower. Later in 1693 French again captured Heidelberg and finished
their job by burning down walls and towers completely reducing the
castle to ruins.
Just to make things worse Mother Nature
finished whatever was left of the magnificent fortress. Karl
Theodor, ruler of Bavaria, was about to move into his new residence,
but on June 23rd 1764 a lighting struck the structure and started a
fire. Karl Theodor changed his mind about moving to a new location
and decided to avoid settling here. Heidelberg Castle was abandoned
and locals started looting building material from Heidelberg.
Destruction of Heidelberg Castle was stopped only in the late 19th
century as reconstruction project began. Reconstruction didn't
rebuilt the original castle. Instead it tried to preserve whatever
was left of the original structure. Every summer Heidelberg Castle
hold theater and music festivals. Additionally the interior of the
castle houses a restaurant, exhibitions, museum management and the
Foundation of Friends of the Castle.
Perkeo the Dwarf of
Heidelberg Castle
Perkeo the Dwarf is a legendary figure in the
history of the Heidelberg Castle. His nickname is believed to come
from a phrase "Perche No?", which is translated as "Why not?". It
was his common response for anyone who offered him a drink. His
colourful bronze figure is found in the wine cellar of the fortress.
Wooden barrels here could hold over 195,000 litres of wine and as
the legends goes Perkeo was quiet frequent here. Court jester and
guardian came originally from Southern Tyrol and came here to serve
Elector Karl Philipp (1716- 42). Local legend claim that the dwarf
died from accidentally drinking a glass of water rather than his
favourite wine.
Around
1182, Konrad der Staufer, half-brother of Emperor Friedrich I
Barbarossa and since 1156 Count Palatine of the Rhine, moved his
court from Stahleck Castle near Bacharach on the Middle Rhine to
Heidelberg Castle, his seat as Vogt of the Schönau monastery in the
Odenwald.
The city of Heidelberg is mentioned for the first
time in a document in 1196. A castle in Heidelberg ("castrum in
Heidelberg cum burgo ipsius castri") is mentioned in 1225, when
Ludwig I received this castle from Bishop Heinrich von Worms as a
fief. In 1214 the dukes of Bavaria from the House of Wittelsbach
were enfeoffed with the Palatinate.
A castle was last
mentioned in 1294. In a document from 1303, two castles are listed
for the first time: the upper castle on the Kleiner Gaisberg near
the current Molkenkur and the lower castle on the Jettenbühl. For a
long time, the opinion prevailed in research that the foundation of
the lower castle must have been built between 1294 and 1303,
especially since the building survey meticulously carried out by the
castle construction office in the second half of the 19th century
concluded that the building fabric was not dated of the castle
before the 15th century. On the basis of architectural discoveries
and recent building archaeological investigations, however, in
recent research on Heidelberg Castle, the development of the lower
castle is now dated to the first half of the 13th century. As early
as 1897, a bricked up late Romanesque window was discovered in the
partition between the Gläsernem Saalbau and Friedrichsbau. In 1976,
excavation work on the northeast corner of the Ruprecht building
uncovered a window fragment in the form of a clover leaf arch in a
layer of rubble and demolition deposited around 1400, as can be
found in a similar form in the arcade windows of Wildenberg Castle.
An archaeological investigation carried out in 1999 in the area of
the Ludwigsbau condensed the evidence of building development on
the palace area in the first half of the 13th century.
The
oldest works that mention Heidelberg Castle are:
the Thesaurus
Picturarum of the Palatine church council Markus zum Lamb (1559 to
1606)
the Annales Academici Heidelbergenses of the Heidelberg
librarian and professor Pithopoeus (begun in 1587)
the Originum
Palatinarum Commentarius by Marquard Freher (1599)
the Teutsche
Reyssebuch by Martin Zeiller (Strasbourg 1632, reprinted as
Itinerarium Germaniae 1674)
All of these works are mostly superficial and contain nothing serious. The situation is different with Merian's Topographia Palatinatus Rheni from 1615, in which Elector Ludwig V is named as the one who “started building a new castle a hundred and several years ago”. Most descriptions of the castle up to the 18th century are based on Merian's information. The endeavor to move the founding time of the castle backwards later leads to indications that the famous court chapel on the Jettenbühl was built under Ruprecht I.
As Ruprecht III.
became German King (Ruprecht I) in 1401, there was such a lack of
space in the castle that when he returned from the coronation he had
to set up his court camp in the Augustinian monastery (today:
Universitätsplatz). The task now was to create space for
representation and accommodation for the civil servants and the
court. At the same time, the castle had to be expanded into a
fortress.
After Ruprecht's death in 1410, the domain was
divided between his four sons. The Palatinate ancestral lands went
to the eldest son Ludwig III. After the Council of Constance, he
brought the deposed Pope John XXIII as deputy of the emperor and
supreme judge in 1415 on behalf of King Sigismund. in custody at the
castle before he was brought to Eichelsheim Castle (now
Mannheim-Lindenhof).
The French poet Victor Hugo visited
Heidelberg in 1838 and particularly enjoyed walking around the ruins
of the castle, the history of which he summarized in a letter:
“Let me just talk about his castle. (This is absolutely essential,
and actually I should have started with it). What hasn't it been
through! For five hundred years it suffered the repercussions of
everything that rocked Europe, and in the end it collapsed under it.
This is because this Heidelberg castle, the residence of the Count
Palatine, who had only kings, emperors and popes over him and was
too important to bend over under their feet, but could not lift his
head without clashing with them that's because, I think, that the
Heidelberg Castle has always taken some kind of opposition to the
powerful. As early as 1300, when it was founded, it begins with a
thebais; in Count Rudolf and Emperor Ludwig, these two degenerate
brothers, it has its Eteocles and its Polynices. In this the elector
gains power. In 1400, Ruprecht II from the Palatinate, supported by
three Rhenish electors, deposed Emperor Wenceslas and took his
place; One hundred and twenty years later, in 1519, Count Palatine
Friedrich II was supposed to make the young King Charles I of Spain
Emperor Charles V. "
- Victor Hugo: Heidelberg
In the Baden-Palatinate War in 1462, Elector
Friedrich I of the Palatinate (the "Palatinate Fritz") arrested
Margrave Karl I of Baden, Bishop Georg von Metz and Count Ulrich V
von Württemberg at the castle. Friedrich had the prisoners chained
on hard food until they were ready to make the ransom payments
demanded.
Margrave Karl I had to pay 25,000 guilders to be
released, surrender his share in the County of Sponheim as a pledge
and declare Pforzheim a fiefdom of the Palatinate. The Metz bishop
had to pay 45,000 guilders. The most important thing, however, was
that Friedrich I of the Palatinate had secured his claim as elector.
The legend reports that Friedrich made his involuntary guests
understand the lack of bread at meal by allowing them to look down
on the devastated land through the window. This is retold in a poem
by Gustav Schwab entitled "The meal in Heidelberg".
During the reign of Ludwig
V, Martin Luther, who had come to Heidelberg to defend his theses
(Heidelberg Disputation), visited the castle. He was shown around by
Count Palatine Wolfgang, the brother of Ludwig V, and later, in a
letter to his friend Georg Spalatin on May 18, 1518, he praised the
beauty and military equipment of the castle.
In the Thirty
Years' War, bullets flew into Heidelberg Castle for the first time.
This is where the actual history of the palace construction ends.
The following centuries brought mainly destruction and restoration.
Despite many reservations, Frederick V of the Palatinate accepted the royal dignity of Bohemia and thus triggered a catastrophe. After the Battle of the White Mountains he was on the run as an outlaw and had prematurely dismissed his troops, so that General Tilly, the commander in chief of the Catholic League troops in the service of the Elector of Bavaria, had an undefended Palatinate in front of him. On August 26, 1622 he opened the bombardment of Heidelberg and took the city on September 16 and the castle a few days later. After the Swedes took the city of Heidelberg on May 5, 1633 and opened fire on the castle from the Königstuhl, the imperial commander handed the fortress over to the Swedes on May 26, 1633. After the heavy defeat of the Swedes in the Battle of Nördlingen in September 1634, the emperor's troops occupied the city again. With the intention of blowing up the castle, 24 tons of powder were deposited in tunnels under the walls of the castle within 14 days. The unexpected appearance of a French army with 30,000 men prevented the planned demolition. Only in July 1635 did the city again come under the control of the imperial troops, in which it remained until the peace agreement. Only on October 7, 1649 did the new ruler move back into his family's destroyed master palace.
After the death of the childless Elector Charles II, the last prince
of the Palatinate-Simmern line, the French King Louis XIV demanded
the handover of the Palatine allodial property in the name of the
Duchess of Orléans. On September 29, 1688, the French armies moved
into the Palatinate in the War of the Palatinate Succession and on
October 24 they moved into Heidelberg, which had been left by
Philipp Wilhelm, the new elector from the Palatinate-Neuburg line.
Against the allied European powers, the French war council
decided to deprive the enemy of the possibility of attack from this
area by destroying all fortifications and devastating the Palatinate
country. When leaving the city on March 2, 1689, the French set the
castle and the city on fire in many corners at the same time.
Immediately after moving into the devastated city, Johann
Wilhelm had the walls and towers restored. When the French reached
the gates of Heidelberg again in 1691 and 1692, they found the city
in such a good state of defense that they had to leave without
having achieved anything. On May 18, 1693, however, the French stood
in front of the city again and took it on May 22. They probably
tried to create the main base of operations against the castle with
the destruction of the city. The following day the castle crew
capitulated, and now the French caught up with what they had only
incompletely done in 1689 in the hurry to leave: They now blew up
the towers and walls that had escaped destruction the last time
through mines. The Heidelberg Castle became a ruin.
The Peace of Rijswijk,
which ended the War of the Palatinate Succession, finally brought
some peace in 1697. It was planned to demolish the castle and use
the usable parts to build a new palace in the valley. However, when
difficulties arose in the implementation of this plan, the castle
was poorly restored. At the same time, Karl Philipp was considering
a complete reconstruction of the palace, but the lack of financial
means put off this project, and when the Elector got into a dispute
with the Protestants of the city in 1720 about the transfer of the
Church of the Holy Spirit to the Catholics Residency in Mannheim
resulted in the elector's interest in Heidelberg Castle. His
intention was to rededicate the Heiliggeistkirche to the Catholic
court church, which the Heidelberg Reformed tried to prevent by all
means. When he announced the relocation of his residence with all
the authorities to Mannheim on April 12, 1720, the elector left the
old capital to its fate and wished it that “grass should grow on its
streets”. The religious conflict was probably only the last impetus
to give up the old mountain castle, which was difficult to convert
into a baroque complex, and to move to the plains, where he could
re-establish a new one entirely at his will.
His successor
Karl Theodor temporarily planned to move his residence back to
Heidelberg Castle. However, he refrained from doing so when on June
24, 1764 lightning struck the hall building twice in a row and the
castle burned again. Victor Hugo later thought this was a sign from
heaven:
“You could even say that heaven interfered. On
June 23, 1764, the day before Karl-Theodor was to move into the
castle and make it his residence (which, by the way, would have been
a great misfortune; because if Karl-Theodor had spent his thirty
years there, it would have been severe ruin, which we admire today,
surely provided with a terrible pompadour ornament), so on the
previous day, when the prince's furniture was already in front of
the door in the Heiliggeistkirche, the fire of heaven hit the
octagonal tower and set it the roof on fire and destroyed this five
hundred year old castle in a few hours. "
- Victor Hugo:
Heidelberg
In the following decades, necessary renovations
were made, but from now on the Heidelberg Castle remained mainly a
ruin.
In 1777, Elector Karl Theodor moved his residence from
Mannheim to Munich. With that he lost sight of Heidelberg Castle
even more. The covered rooms were now used by craft businesses. As
early as 1767, the ashlars of the south wall were used as building
material for Schwetzingen Castle. In 1784 the vaults on the ground
floor of the Ottheinrichsbaus were laid and the castle was used as a
quarry.
With the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803
Heidelberg and Mannheim went to Baden. Grand Duke Karl Friedrich
welcomed the large area increase, but he regarded Heidelberg Castle
as an undesirable addition. The buildings fell into disrepair,
Heidelberg citizens took stones, wood and iron from the castle to
build their houses. Figures and decorations were also chopped off.
In 1803 August von Kotzebue expressed outrage at the Baden
government's intention to have the ruins removed. At the beginning
of the 19th century, the destroyed castle became a symbol of the
patriotic sentiment that was directed against Napoleonic oppression.
Even before 1800, painters and draftsmen recognized the castle
ruins and the mountainous river landscape as an ideal ensemble. The
highlight are the paintings by the Englishman William Turner, who
stayed in Heidelberg several times between 1817 and 1844 and made
several paintings of Heidelberg and the castle. For him and other
artists of the Romantic era, it was not about a detailed building
survey. They tended to be fairly free to deal with reality. In his
painting of the castle, for example, the terrain is depicted at
multiple elevations.
The term romanticism was declared a
universal poetry by the philosopher Friedrich Schlegel at the end of
the 18th century - a literary theoretical term from early
romanticism. In it all arts and genres would merge into one form.
However, in the general understanding this turned into a
transfigured sentimental feeling of longing. This feeling was
particularly expressed in the so-called Heidelberg Romanticism. For
example in the song collections of the authors Achim von Arnim and
Clemens Brentano, who often stayed in Heidelberg. Landscape painters
made the remains of the castle the central motif of their paintings,
in which the gracefulness of the surrounding landscape was often
contrasted with the solemn and gloomy of the ruins. Clemens Brentano
wrote:
"And as I turned the corner, - a cool breeze drew towards
me - The Neckar rushes out of green halls - And gives a joyful sound
on the rock, - The city stretches down the river, - With a lot of
noise and noise very lively, - And over it on green mountain chest,
- The castle rests large and sees the pleasure. "
- Clemens
Brentano: Song of a student's arrival in Heidelberg and his dream on
the bridge, in which a nice dialogue between Frau Pallas and Karl
Theodor
The poetics-based concepts of Romanticism were
developed in discussions between Achim and Jacob Grimm about the
relationship between natural and art poetry. Turning away from the
elements of reflection, criticism and rhetoric in art poetry, the
“Heidelberg Romanticism” deals with natural poetry. In the course of
the 19th century, Heidelberg, with its castle and local nature,
became increasingly known and popular with travelers and hikers. The
town and castle became the epitome of romantic atmosphere.
The savior of the castle was the French Count Charles de Graimberg. He fought against plans of the Baden government, for which the Heidelberg Castle was the "old walls with its diverse, tasteless, ruinous decorations", for the preservation of the castle ruins. He held the post of voluntary castle guard until 1822 and lived for a while in the porch of the glass hall building, from which he could best overlook the castle courtyard. Long before there was a preservation of monuments in Germany, he was the first to take care of the preservation and documentation of the castle, when no one thought of preventing its decay during the romantic crush. On behalf of Graimberg, Thomas A. Leger wrote the first castle guide. With his high-volume prints, Graimberg helped the castle ruins to become well-known that drew tourism to Heidelberg.
The question of whether the castle should be
completely restored led to long discussions. The poet Wolfgang
Müller von Königswinter campaigned for a complete renewal in 1868
and thus provoked violent reactions that were carried out in the
press and in meetings. From the dispute about the correct handling
of the castle ruins, a fundamental discussion about the tasks of
monument preservation developed. The results of this debate, which
went down in history as the “Heidelberg Castle Dispute”, had a
lasting impact on the principles of the preservation of historic
buildings.
The grand ducal government of Baden established a
palace construction office in 1883, which was managed by the
district building inspector Julius Koch and the architect Fritz
Seitz under the supervision of the building director Josef Durm in
Karlsruhe. The task of the office was to take stock as precisely as
possible and at the same time to suggest measures to maintain or
repair the main building. The work of this office ended in 1890 and
formed the basis for a commission of experts from all over Germany.
The commission came to the unanimous conviction that a complete or
partial restoration of the castle was out of the question, whereas a
preservation of the current condition should be strived for by all
means. Only the Friedrichsbau, the interior of which had been
destroyed by fire but was never in ruins, was to be restored. This
restoration was finally done in the period from 1897 to 1900 by Carl
Schäfer at the enormous cost of 520,000 marks. In 2019, the expense
corresponds to € 3,600,000 adjusted for inflation.
The oldest description of Heidelberg from 1465
already mentions that the city is “much visited by strangers”. But
real city tourism began at the beginning of the 19th century at the
earliest. With his drawings, Count Graimberg ensured that the castle
was widely used as an image motif. They practically became the
forerunners of the postcard. At the same time, the castle was also a
souvenir on cups. However, tourism did not get the decisive boost
until Heidelberg was connected to the railway network in 1840.
Mark Twain described Heidelberg Castle as follows in his book
Bummel durch Europa (A Tramp Abroad) in 1878:
“To be
effective, a ruin has to be in the right location. This one couldn't
have been more conveniently located. It stands at a height that
dominates the surroundings, it is hidden in green forests, there is
no level ground around it, but on the contrary, wooded terraces, you
can look down through shiny leaves into deep crevices and abysses
where twilight reigns and the sun does not can penetrate. Nature
knows how to decorate a ruin in order to achieve the best effect. "
- Mark Twain: Stroll through Europe.
An arson attack
carried out on May 18, 1978, which is attributed to the
Revolutionary Cells, caused property damage of 97,000 DM to the
castle.
In the 20th century, Americans fell even more deeply
into the Heidelberg myth and carried it out into the world. This is
why many other nationalities also count Heidelberg Castle as one of
the few stopovers on their short trips through Europe.
At the
beginning of the 21st century, Heidelberg has more than a million
visitors and around 900,000 overnight stays every year. According to
a survey by the Geographic Institute of Heidelberg University, the
most important starting point is the castle with its viewing
terraces.
Heidelberg Castle is one of the state's own
monuments and is looked after by the “State Palaces and Gardens of
Baden-Württemberg”. From the Baden-Württemberg state infrastructure
program, 3 million euros were made available for the construction of
a visitor center designed by Max Dudler. It opened in 2012.
According to the palace administration, the castle is also the
largest bat winter quarters in North Baden. Because of the bluebat
and the great mouse-eared bat that hibernated there, the part of the
Christmas market taking place in the garden in front of the castle
was relocated to Friedrich-Ebert-Platz in 2016.
The forecourt of the palace is roughly formed by the area between the main gate and the Oberes Fürstenbrunnen, the Elisabethentor to the piece garden, the bridge gate to the palace and the entrance to the gardens. Around 1800 the castle courtyard was used by the bailiff as a bleacher on which items of laundry were laid out. The forecourt was later auctioned off as a “grass and feeding place” for cattle. Chickens and geese also had free space here.
The path to the former forecourt of the castle leads over a stone bridge over a partially filled ditch. The main gate was built in 1528, the guard house was destroyed in the Palatinate War of Succession and replaced by today's arched entrance gate in 1718. The gate to the left of the main entrance was closed by a drawbar that could be lowered for individual pedestrians.
In 1961, a stone plaque was attached to a remnant of the
wall of the bird house to replace an older plaque. The inscription
with verses by Marianne von Willemers is intended to commemorate her
last meeting with Johann Wolfgang Goethe at the end of September
1815. Of the nine stanzas that she wrote down here in the palace on
August 28, 1824, Goethe's 75th birthday, three are reproduced:
High arched arch on the terrace
There was a time for him to
come and go
The cipher drawn by a dear hand
I did not find her
she is no longer to be seen
Marianne von Willemer wrote these
verses
In memory of their last meeting with
Goethe in the
autumn days of 1815
Immediately opposite the Goethe memorial
plaque there was once a ginkgo that Goethe knew. It is said that
Goethe and friends looked at the leaves of Heidelberg Ginkgo and
talked shop about their shape. The ginkgo symbol linked Goethe with
Marianne von Willemer, who surprisingly visited him with her husband
on September 23, 1815 in Heidelberg. In 1928, the ginkgo planted in
1795 was said to be "still the same in the palace gardens to whom
Goethe owed the inspiration for his beautiful poem". The tree was
probably still standing in 1936. Marianne von Willemer was the third
wife of his Frankfurt friend, the banker Johann Jakob von Willemer,
who was more than twenty years younger than himself. Goethe met his
lover several times at the former Schaumaintor when he was Stayed in
Frankfurt in mid-September 1815. There he dedicated the poem Gingo
Biloba to her on September 15, 1815 and enclosed two ginkgo leaves
as an expression of his affection. The tree poem was later included
in the book "Suleika" in the West-Eastern Divan.
The art
collector and writer Sulpiz Boisserée, who was a friend of Goethe,
mentions in a diary entry from September 16, 1815 - he stayed with
Goethe in the Gerbermühle near Frankfurt until September 17 - about
the genesis of the poem Gin (k) go biloba:
“Happy evening. G.
had sent a leaf of Ginkho (sic) biloba to Wilemer from the city as a
symbol of friendship. It is not known whether it is one that divides
into two, or two that combine into one. Such was the content of the
verse. "
The text of the poem reads:
Gingo Biloba
This tree's leaf, that of the east
Entrusted to my garden,
Gives secret meaning to taste,
How it edifies the knower
...
The letter with the poem and the enclosed sheets can be seen in
the Goethe Museum in Düsseldorf.
The former tack room, originally a coach house, was probably initially a fortification. After the Thirty Years War it was used for stables and as a tool, carriage and coach house. In the 18th century the vault collapsed and was not rebuilt until 1977 to 1979. Since then it has been used as a cafeteria for visitors to the castle.
The Upper Prince Fountain was redesigned and built
over under Elector Karl Philipp. His monogram with the year 1738 is
carved over the door of the fountain house. On the right-hand side
of the staircase there is the following inscription:
“[DIreCtione] ALeXanDro BIbIena CVra et opera HenrICI Neeb Fons hIC
PRINCIpaLIs reparat (Vs) PVrIor sCatVrIt”
"Under the
supervision of Alessandro Galli da Bibiena and executed by Heinrich
Neeb, this fountain was renewed and now bubbles more purely."
The inscription is a chronogram from which the year 1741
results. This and the lower prince's fountain covered the water
needs of the electoral court in Mannheim until the 19th century.
In 1798 Johann Andreas von Traitteur recalls these water
transports:
“Because of the lack of healthy, good well water,
as long as the court was in Mannheim, the necessary water for it was
brought in daily from the mountains. As is well known, the court
chamber had to hold a special water truck which was set up for this
purpose and which drove daily to Heidelberg and fetched the water
from the prince's fountain in the castle courtyard. "
- Hans
Weckesser: Beloved water tower.
The water quality in Mannheim was so bad that the noble families of the court society, who could afford it, joined this procedure and also financed water transports from Heidelberg to Mannheim. In the electoral residence there was still a “Heidelberg water filler” among the court servants in 1777.
Nothing is known about the appearance of the medieval
castle. It extended over the area of today's castle courtyard
without the later extensions to the west (thick tower, north wall
(English building) and west wall with roundel) and within the inner
ring wall, the sparse remains of which in the east wall of the
Ludwig building, the east and south wall of the Farm building as
well as the west wall of Ruprechtbau and Frauenzimmerbau still
exist. The later castle and the castle, which burned down in 1537 at
the height of today's Molkenkur, formed a line of defense with which
the Neckar valley could be “dominated”.
From around the
middle of the 15th century, the castle was expanded into a fortress
by building three towers for guns and the outer curtain wall on the
east side. In the first half of the 16th century, Ludwig V extended
the palace area considerably to the west and had new strong
fortifications and individual residential buildings built.
Thereafter, the castle was gradually expanded from a representative
point of view. The ability to defend himself took a back seat among
his successors. Only gradually, from generation to generation, did
the castle become a collection of spacious residential buildings.
The renowned art historian Georg Dehio describes Heidelberg
Castle as follows:
“As a conglomerate of numerous buildings,
whose mixed style is only softened by the ruin and whose uniform
impression is based on the crowdedness around the common courtyard,
the castle towers high above the city on the Jettenbühl terrace of
the Königstuhl. In keeping with the character of a fortification,
the west, south and east faces turn towards the courtyard; only the
buildings on the storm-free north side facing the city have a
second, outward-facing, pompous facade. "
- Georg Dehio:
Handbook of the German Art Monuments. Baden-Württemberg I. The
administrative districts of Stuttgart and Karlsruhe
Ruprechtsbau
The Ruprechtsbau is named
after its builder, the Count Palatine and King Ruprecht. This began
at the beginning of the 15th century with the construction of the
parts of Heidelberg Castle that are still preserved today, including
the Ruprechtsbau, which is one of the oldest preserved buildings in
the complex. For a long time it was even believed that the entire
history of Heidelberg Castle began with this building. However,
during archaeological research carried out during renovation work at
the end of the 19th century, fragments of Romanesque and early
Gothic windows were found. The construction of the castle is
therefore estimated to have started around 1300.
An angel's
coat of arms above the portal adorns the building. It is assumed
that this is the badge of the builder who has immortalized himself
in this way for posterity. According to tradition, the two angels on
the coat of arms represent the builder's children, who fell from a
scaffold during the construction work on the castle and were killed.
The master became so sad about it that the construction came to a
standstill. Wilhelm Sigmund tells this legend as follows:
“But
Emperor Ruprecht was angry that the building was progressing so
slowly and had the master admonished by the priest who buried the
children. He said everything was ready, but how he should close the
gate, in his grief, did not follow him.
Immediately it was
revealed to the master how to close the gate. He chiseled his boys
as they had appeared to him, as lovely children of angels wearing a
rosary. In the middle of the wreath he put the circle, the symbol of
his art, from which he said goodbye forever. "
- Wilhelm
Sigmund
As Ruprecht III. In 1400, when Ruprecht I became
German King, the building was used for representation purposes. That
is why there is a coat of arms on the Ruprechtsbau with the imperial
eagle, which refers to the monarchy. Inside the Ruprecht building
there is a renaissance chimney, one of the few interior elements
that are still preserved today. In 1534 Ludwig V added a stone upper
floor to the Ruprechtsbau. A ledge in the wall on the front edge and
the year 1534 inside the building still tell of the renovation
today.
Ruprecht III.
Ruprecht III. was the only son of
Elector Ruprecht II of the Palatinate. Together with the Archbishop
of Mainz, he had been at the head of the princes since 1398, who
deposed King Wenceslas on August 20, 1400. The Archbishop of Cologne
Friedrich III. von Saar Werden, after his election in Cologne,
because Aachen and Frankfurt am Main did not open the gates to him,
Ruprecht was crowned Roman-German king. In the empire, at least in
the areas close to the king, he quickly found recognition,
especially since Wenzel did nothing further. However, Ruprecht's
sphere of activity was very limited.
Ruprecht had the
castle's oldest recognizable residential building, the Ruprechtsbau
named after him, built. He also began building the Church of the
Holy Spirit.
Friedrichsbau
Elector Friedrich IV had the
Friedrichsbau built from 1601 to 1607 after the residential building
with the palace chapel that was previously on this site threatened
to collapse. Johannes Schoch was the architect of the building.
Statues of the ancestors of the electors are incorporated into the
courtyard facade of the Friedrichsbau. The sculptor of this
ancestral gallery of the client was Sebastian Götz from Chur.
Friedrich's ancestors are depicted on the courtyard side. Starting
at the top left, these are:
Zwerchgiebel: Charlemagne, Otto
von Wittelsbach, Ludwig the Kelheimer, Rudolf the Stammler
Top
floor, four crowned Wittelsbachers: Ludwig der Baier, Ruprecht I,
Otto of Hungary, Christoph of Denmark
Middle full story, the
university founders Ruprecht I, Friedrich I, Friedrich the Wise,
Ottheinrich
Lower floor: Friedrich the Pious, Ludwig VI., Johann
Casimir, Friedrich IV.
The gables also show allegorical
representations of spring and summer, symbols of the transience of
everything earthly.
The Friedrichsbau is the first palace of
the castle, which was also built with a representative facade on the
city side. The castle church is located on the ground floor of the
building and is still intact today. The upper floors of the building
were used as living space.
After the devastating fires in
1693 and 1764, this part of the castle was the only part to be
rebuilt. From 1890 to 1900 the Friedrichsbau was fundamentally
renewed in the style of historicism based on designs by Karlsruhe
professor Carl Schäfer. At that time, a very controversial
discussion sparked about how the interiors should be designed. In
particular, the art historian Georg Dehio had spoken out in favor of
preserving the building in its grown structure. Ultimately, the
decision was made to use a neo-renaissance interior. Many rooms in
the Friedrichbau today show a stylistic pluralism in free
composition. Ultimately, however, the rooms were never used as
living spaces again, but functioned as a museum building.
Friedrich IV.
Friedrich IV took over the leadership of the Union
of Protestants in 1608, which intensified the conflict between
Catholic and Protestant principalities considerably. Despite his
inadequate training, Friedrich showed great interest in the
humanities and set up chairs for history and oriental studies at
Heidelberg University.
Friedrich gave himself up to his
amusement and ruined the finances of his country. He describes his
debauchery and the hangover afterwards in his own words: "I must
have been full again".
Elector Friedrich IV. Has lasting
importance because he founded the Friedrichsburg fortress named
after him in 1606/1607, from which the residence and city of
Mannheim emerged. His main activities at Heidelberg Castle were the
construction of the Friedrichsbaus named after him and the old
extension as well as the expansion of the three towers on the east
side.
Ottheinrichsbau
Name: named after Elector
Ottheinrich (Otto-Heinrich)
First master builder: Hans Engelhardt
- draft, at least partially by Peter Flötner
Second builder:
Caspar Vischer
The Ottheinrichsbau was built under
Ottheinrich after he became elector in 1556. The new palace was one
of the first Renaissance buildings on German soil and is an
important building of German Mannerism. For the Ottheinrichsbau
older buildings were partly covered (Gläserner Saalbau) or
demolished (northern half of the Ludwigsbau). In the east, the
building rests on the foundations of older buildings and on the
outer defensive wall.
The facade of the four-storey building is
decorated with 16 allegorical figures that symbolize the elector's
government program. The figures come from the Dutchman Alexander
Colin, who later worked for the Habsburgs. When Ottheinrich died in
1559, the building was not yet completed. Earlier illustrations (in
Matthäus Merian's Kurpfälzisches Sketchbook) show that the
Ottheinrich building had two oversized double gables before the
Thirty Years War, which did not harmonize well with the horizontal
structure of the building, which was essentially based on Italian
models of the early Renaissance. This was apparently due to one of
Elector Friedrich III. caused change of plan and not included in the
original planning. Under Karl Ludwig, the Ottheinrichsbau received a
new roofing after the Thirty Years War, and the huge double gables
disappeared.
Figure program on the facade of the Ottheinrich
building
The 16 statues (apart from the four portal figures) are
allegorical representations and figures from the Old Testament and
the world of gods. From the latter, the Ottheinrichsbau had the name
of the pagan construction in the 18th century:
Ground floor:
mythical heroes (Joshua, Samson, Heracles and David) and Roman
emperors as symbols of political and military power. In the
triangular gables of the windows there are portraits of famous
Romans, which were made from templates from the coin collection.
1st floor: virtues of a Christian ruler (strength, faith, love, hope
and justice)
2nd floor: Personifications of the seven classical
planets, Saturn, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Sol and Luna
The
four statues on the first floor are explained by awkward verse in
Gothic script:
He who duke Joshua through God made one and
thirty kings killed.
Samson the strong one / Nasir Gotteß was
shielded Israhel / wolwentzig Jar.
Joviss sun Hercules / am I
addressed. Well known by my wonderful things.
David was a young /
ling hearted and wise to the cheeky Goliath / who cut off head.
The Heidelberg archaeologist Karl Bernhard Stark explained the
meaning of this program of figures as follows:
“The
three-dimensional representations of the facade of the palace
together form a beautiful mirror of the princely government.
Princely power is certainly built on the strength of personality, on
the heroism of the people; it has its center in the practice of the
Christian virtues, united with strength and justice, is finally
under the influence of higher powers, a heavenly direction that
manifests itself in the course of the stars. "
- K.B. Stark
Ottheinrich introduced Protestantism in the
Electoral Palatinate in 1557, promoted science and obliged budding
physicians to dissect corpses. His library, the Bibliotheca
Palatina, was considered one of the most important of its time.
Due to his lavish lifestyle, Ottheinrich was threatened with
bankruptcy. He also had a promissory note from his grandmother
Hedwig's estate. This promissory note for 32,000 guilders, issued by
King Casimir IV of Poland on the occasion of his daughter Hedwig's
marriage to George the Rich, was never paid out by the Polish royal
court. Ottheinrich had interest and compound interest calculated and
came to the sum of 200,000 guilders. So in 1536 Ottheinrich set out
to visit his great uncle, the Polish King Sigismund I, in Krakow.
During the three-week negotiations, Ottheinrich was able to achieve
the disbursement of the promissory note, but not the payment of the
interest.
Ottheinrich only ruled for three years and is still
one of the most important electors. He had the Ottheinrichsbau,
named after him, built on the castle, which is considered an
outstanding example of German Renaissance architecture.
Ludwigsbau
The Ludwigsbau was built in 1524 by Ludwig V and
served as a residential building. It replaced an older building, the
walls of which were partially reused for the Ludwigsbau. The Gothic
stepped gable that closed off the south wall is no longer there
today.
Originally, the Ludwigsbau was a symmetrical building
with the stair tower in the middle of the front. Elector
Ottheinrich, however, had the northern part on the other side of the
stair tower demolished to make room for the Ottheinrich building. In
1764 the Ludwigsbau was destroyed by fire.
Under the coat of
arms on the outside, two monkeys are depicted who play the game of
pulling cats. This can be seen as an allusion to the trials of
strength of the noble boys who lived on the top floor of the
Ludwigsbau.
Ludwig V.
Ludwig V the Peacemaker managed to limit the
consequences of the Landshut War of Succession and to restore the
rights of the Electoral Palatinate in the empire. He also succeeded
in reconciling with the Bavarian Wittelsbachers. The friendly
contacts his brother Friedrich had with the House of Habsburg came
to his aid. He achieved that the imperial ban was officially lifted
and the Palatinate privileges were confirmed. When the emperor was
elected in 1519, Ludwig voted for Charles V due to large donations
from the Habsburgs.
In 1523 Ludwig put down the knight
rebellion under Franz von Sickingen. During the peasant uprisings in
1525 he tried to negotiate with the peasants, as he considered
demands such as the abolition of serfdom to be justified. After the
unrest got out of hand, however, he participated in the suppression
of the peasant uprising.
Ludwig V is considered to be the
"castle builder". It gained its special significance through the
expansion of the large castle fortifications, the erection of the
west wall and the thick tower, but also through the modernization of
the other buildings in the residence.
English construction
The English building - today a ruin - is the last large building in
the history of Heidelberg Castle. For reasons of space, it was laid
out outside of the palace area and is located between the thick
tower and the barrel building. The large knight's staircase runs
below the English building. With the establishment of the English
building, the basic ideas of protection and defense were ignored, as
the kennel and moat were bridged and a possible enemy was given
better opportunities to attack. The architect is unknown. Salomon de
Caus and Inigo Jones, who both came to Heidelberg with Elisabeth,
come into question.
Today receptions and performances of the
castle festival take place in the ruins. There is space for around
300 seats on 500 square meters.
Elisabeth Stuart
Elisabeth
Stuart, the granddaughter of Maria Stuart and sister of Charles I of
England, was nicknamed "Pearl of Britain" and "Queen of Hearts"
because of her beauty and was briefly titular Queen of Bohemia at
the side of Frederick V of the Palatinate , also known as the
"Winter Queen". Elisabeth was born in 1596 as the only surviving
daughter of Jacob VI. of Scotland, who was to become King of England
and Ireland as James I. It got its name after the English Queen
Elizabeth I.
After preliminary negotiations in 1612, two
Palatine ambassadors arrived at the English royal court with a sales
letter, where the allies welcomed the plan to combine the two ruling
houses. Then Friedrich traveled to England to courtship. But the
queen was against the marriage because Friedrich was "only" an
elector. But his outward appearance won over the English and the
sixteen-year-old princess. The two were considered the dream couple
of their time. Elisabeth persuaded Frederick V, among others, to
accept the crown of Bohemia and shared his fate as a refugee after
the battle of the White Mountain until his death in 1632. The hope
of help from their royal relatives in England turned out to be
deceptive.
After the end of the Thirty Years' War, Elisabeth
wanted to return to Heidelberg with Prince Ruprecht, but her son,
Elector Karl Ludwig, refused this request because he had an affair
with Luise von Degenfeld and his broken marriage with Charlotte von
Hessen-Kassel anyway to do the reconstruction of the country after
the war.
Buildings named after functions
Library building
The library building (earlier erroneously also: Rudolfsbau) is
located between the Ruprechtsbau and the Frauenzimmerbau. It is in
the late Gothic style and was built around 1520 by Elector Ludwig V
by the court architect Lorenz Lechler.
The so-called library
building was added in close connection with the neighboring women's
room building on the west side of the castle ring. The name of this
building, which appeared for the first time in the 17th century, is
misleading, as there is no evidence of its primary use as an
electoral library. Rather, the vaulted room on the first floor is a
so-called dining room for the elector's table. Table rooms emerged
in the 16th century when the princes no longer went to the court
room every day, but instead withdrew to separate rooms on the upper
floors.
The library building differs from other castle
buildings of the 16th century in that it was vaulted in stone up to
the upper floors. This is attributed to the fact that the Electoral
Mint may have been kept here. The library building was the "safe" of
the palace and the court. Its walls on the first floor are three
meters thick. The dining room, which must have had a clear height of
6.60 meters, expanded beyond the massive ground floor rooms, some of
which were painted. The most beautiful part of the building still
preserved is the bay window facing the courtyard on the upper floor.
The library building was the only palace in the palace to be spared
from the palace fire set by the French in 1689, but was destroyed in
1693.
Frauenzimmerbau (Königssaal)
Only the ground floor
remains of the women's room. It was built under Ludwig V around
1510. Presumably the ladies-in-waiting lived here, who had their
rooms on the upper floors of the women's room building. The second
floor was made of half-timbered houses. The facade was adorned by
several bay windows. In the 17th century, a decorative facade with
columns and figures was painted on the courtyard side to visually
enhance the building.
On the ground floor there was a large
court room (later: King's Hall), which was used for daily meals and
all kinds of festivities. The court room was 34.65 meters long,
16.70 meters wide and 7.40 meters high. The wooden ceiling rested on
four stone supports that carried a continuous beam as a support for
the ceiling beams.
The special feature of the electoral court
room was its enrichment with a box-like bay window on all four
sides, which are only partially preserved today. The electoral table
was located directly in front of the bay window that originally
opened on three sides in a northerly direction towards the Neckar
valley. The remains of the oriel vaults still show a special design
today, as the ribs were decorated with branches, flowers and bird
motifs. In this decoration, the oriel by Peter Harer is described in
a poem on the occasion of the princely wedding of Count Palatine
Friedrich and Dorothea of Denmark in 1535 and the dining room is
compared with the Grail temple:
"Eß were probably three
furstentisch: / On the first, which is decreed / Gewest in the back
above, / Which of the art to praise cheaply / I think the tempell
auf montsaluat, / Has got the Titurell, / Does not like this work: /
Gethierts, laubwerckh, and a picture, ma view, / Gantz artlich and
reyn excavated, / Much possament technically sublime, / The tangle
gracefully anthems, / Of colors already plumbed out. / Eß is not
saved a lot. "
After the completion of the ballrooms in the
Gläserne Saalbau and Ottheinrichsbau and changes with the table
ceremony, the court room lost its role as a representation room. It
became a room in which jousting games took place in bad weather,
meetings were held or the servants dined on festive occasions.
In 1689 the building burned down completely, and the former
courtyard room later served as a work space for the cooper, who
worked on the large barrel and thus gave the building the name
"Bandhaus". Since the cooper complained that the rainwater was
pouring onto the barrels, Karl Theodor had the ruins fitted with the
current emergency roof. Today the building is mainly known as the
“King's Hall”, even if this King's Hall only occupies the ground
floor of the former women's room. In the 1930s, the ground floor was
restored and has served the city of Heidelberg as a ballroom for all
kinds of events ever since.
Barrel construction
The barrel
building was built by Johann Casimir from 1589 to 1592 especially
for the famous large barrel. It is connected to the royal hall so
that there was as direct access as possible to the wine stocks in
the barrel during celebrations. What is unusual about the building
is the late Gothic style, as the Renaissance style had already
established itself at the time of construction.
The statue of
the barrel guard Perkeo, symbol of the wine connoisseur to whom Karl
Philipp had handed over the care of the barrel, looks at the large
barrel. Karl Philipp had brought Perkeo with him as a court jester
from Innsbruck, where he had been the imperial governor of Tyrol
before his accession to the throne. According to legend, the elector
asked him if he could drink the big barrel alone. He should have
answered: “Perché no?” (Italian: 'why not?'). The name Perkeo is
derived from this. Reinhard Hoppe tells the story as follows:
“Elector Karl Philipp ordered his court jester,
the dwarf Clemens Perkeo, to be the guardian of the big barrel. He
had met him on a trip through Tyrol and had taken a liking to his
small stature and his quick wit. When the elector had tested the
little one for his ability to drink, he said to him: 'Come with me
to Heidelberg. I appoint you to be knight and chamberlain to the
barrel king. The largest barrel in the world is in my castle cellar.
When you finish it, the city and castle should be yours. ”'Perche
no' (Why not), answered the little boy. The elector laughed and
said: 'Your name should be Perkeo.' "
- Reinhard Hoppe: home
around Heidelberg
Wine is said to have been the only drink
Perkeo has consumed since childhood. When he first fell ill in old
age, his doctor strongly advised him not to drink wine and
recommended that he drink water. Despite great skepticism, Perkeo
accepted this advice and died the next day. Victor Hugo rumored that
Perkeo had to drink fifteen bottles of wine a day and otherwise was
flogged.
Glass hall construction
The glass hall was built
by Elector Friedrich II. The building takes its name from the hall
on the upper floor decorated with Venetian mirror glass. Towards the
courtyard the building has very sturdy Renaissance arcades, but late
Gothic vaults in the arcades. The north side of the building facing
the city is completely unadorned, the east side is adorned with a
small Gothic bay window and, like the courtyard-facing bay porch,
had an ornate gable. It is assumed that the Ottheinrichsbau was
already planned when the Gläserne Saalbau was built, as the rear
half of the building is behind the Ottheinrichsbau and was carried
out without any facade decorations.
After the Thirty Years'
War, Elector Karl Ludwig had the glass hall rebuilt. The floor
heights were changed and new, arched windows were built into the
north front. The walls of the original windows are partly still
visible in the north facade. On July 24, 1764, lightning struck
twice in a row and the hall building burned down to the cellar
vault. In 1897 a walled up early Gothic window group was discovered
in the western wall of the glass hall building, which indicates that
the palace area was being built in the first half of the 13th
century.
Economic building
The names Metzelhaus and
Backhaus refer to the functions as a slaughterhouse and bakery. The
staircase to the upper floors led into the apartments of the castle
officials. The farm buildings in the southeast corner of the
courtyard are not particularly significant in terms of art history.
The actual kitchen was in the southeast of the castle and connected
to the blown tower. Günter Heinemann, the former head of the
Heidelberg City Archives, writes about these rooms and their
peripheral location in the courtyard:
"What was originally a
kitchen cabinet filled with smoke and the smell of cooking has long
since ceased to be of interest as the quiet corner of the castle's
courtyard."
- Günter Heinemann: Heidelberg
Soldier
building
The soldiers' building is close to the main entrance in
order to be able to protect it better. In the basement of the
three-story building was the guard room, above that the soldiers'
living quarters. A permanent garrison of about 50 men was quartered
here for guard and honorary services.
Well construction
The fountain hall, which was built under Ludwig V, connects directly
to the soldiers' building. The four free-standing monoliths and two
half-columns leaning against the wall are striking. The once
half-buried draw well is about 16 meters deep and was probably
already there in 1508. Sebastian Münster reported about the pillars
that they had stood at the former palace of Charlemagne in his
hometown of Ingelheim and had been brought by Elector Philip to
Heidelberg Castle, where they were still located. It is possible
that these columns were taken from an ancient building near Mainz.
Thick tower
The thick tower is one
of the castle's fortifications built under Elector Ludwig V. It
was nearly forty meters high, its walls were seven meters thick
with a total diameter of 28 meters. Nevertheless, these strong
walls could be blown up. The fault lines run where the masonry
was broken, for example by loopholes. It is also noticeable that
the red sandstone was not as resistant as the mortar that
connected the sandstone blocks.
The tower looked
threatening from the city, which was also the intention of the
builder, because Ludwig the Peaceful was of the opinion that
only fear could keep peace.
Frederick V had the upper
part of the tower transformed into a theater modeled on the
London Globe Theater, which burned down in 1613. With this
theater hall in the thick tower, the elector showed his wife's
British origins and wanted to continue the Shakespearian theater
tradition. The almost circular upper platform of the thick tower
was almost 28 meters in diameter and 85 square meters in area.
On the inscription plaque on the thick tower not only the
builder of the tower is named, but also the redesign of the
upper floor is indicated. Only the Nuremberg builder Peter Karl
dared to do this task. The Latin inscription reads:
“LVDOVICVS COM(es). PAL(atinus). R(heni) ELEC(tor). DVX. BAVAR(iae). / MOLEM. HANC EXSTRUXIT. A(nno) C(hristi). MDXXXIII. / FRIDERICVS V. COM(es). PAL(atinus). R(heni) ELEC(tor). / S(acri). R(omani). I(mperii). VICARIVS. BAVAR(iae) DVX / AD. ZONAM. VSQ(ue). DESTRVXIT / REFECIT, FORNICIBVS. DISTINXIT / COENACVLI ATTITVDINI. II XXXIII. PED(es). ADDIDIT. / COLVMNAM. TOTIVS. TECTI. MOLEM. SVSTINENTEM / E. MEDIO. SVSTVLIT / IMMOTO. INCORRVPTOQVE TECTO / HAEC. MONVMENTA. POSVIT / A(nno). S(alutis) MDCXIX”
“Ludwig, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Elector and Duke in Bavaria,
performed this building in the year of Christ 1533. Frederick V,
Count Palatine of the Rhine, Elector and Administrator of the Holy
Roman Empire, Duke in Bavaria, broke it off to the main cornice, new
erected, provided with a vaulted ceiling, the height of the dining
room increased by 33 feet, the pillar bearing the load of the entire
roof in the middle, without removing and damaging the roof, removed
and these monuments erected in the year of salvation in 1619. "
The two stone figures show the Electors Ludwig V and Friedrich
V, the two builders of the tower.
In 1689 the northern wall
shell was blown off and fell into the valley. After the destruction
in 1693, the citizens of the city of Heidelberg were officially
given permission to fetch the cut stones from the thick tower to
rebuild their houses. For example, the noble court of Lieutenant
General and Oberstjägermeister Friedrich Freiherr von Venningen in
Hauptstrasse 52 (Haus zum Riesen) was built from ashlar stones from
the thick tower with the express permission of the Elector.
Prison Tower (Rarely Empty)
The ruin of the prison tower is on
the southwest corner of the moat. The prison room was probably
located in the lightless tower base. As a defense tower, it was
hardly considered. It is the smallest of the flanking towers, has an
outer diameter of around 10 meters and a height of around 19.50
meters with a wall thickness of 2.75 meters.
It is not
certain where the antipope John XXIII. was held captive in
Heidelberg. Some statements call the lock. Then the Seltenleer tower
could have been the papal prison. Presumably it was housed near the
Old Bridge, because in a translated letter from an Italian to Pope
Paul V the bridge monkey ("to prison, as the old monkey is called")
is mentioned.
The gate tower was
built between 1531 and 1541 as part of the defenses that were built
under Elector Ludwig V. To this day it is the main entrance to the
castle. In the basement there is a lightless room, which is often
referred to as a castle dungeon. In the middle arch of the doorway
there is an elevator hole that is repeated on the three floors
above. These holes were necessary to supply the tower guard, who
lived on the top floor of the tower.
The gate tower made of
red sandstone blocks is 52 meters high, measured from the base of
the moat, and has a floor area of 12.50 meters square. Today it is
the tallest of the castle towers. A thick oak gate with a wicket
(eye of a needle) and the tips of the portcullis are still preserved
from the fortification. In 1689 the fire of the burning Ruprecht
building spread to the roof of the tower and destroyed it. The now
existing slated tower dome was not added to the tower until the
Baroque period, around 1716, to save the entrance area to the
destroyed castle from decay.
The front side is dominated by
the so-called 3.40 meter high gate giants and the shield-bearing
lions. The allegedly silver coat of arms is missing and was probably
melted down. The two knight figures are dated to the years 1534 and
1536. They stand on round consoles and are protected by canopies.
The bridge between the gatehouse and the gate tower was blown up
by French miners in 1693 and restored with a drawbridge under
Elector Karl Philipp. The drawbridge was not abandoned until 1810
and a permanent road connection was created with another bridge
pillar, the pillars of which rise from the twenty meter deep moat.
At the gate tower you can still see the holes for the chains on
which the former drawbridge hung.
An iron
ring hangs on the gate of the castle courtyard, with which visitors
once gave a knock when they wanted to enter. According to legend,
the lock is given to whoever manages to bite through the ring. A
witch tried several times to bite through the ring, but her magic
powers failed. Only a small indentation remained in the knocking
ring, the so-called "witch's bite". Daniel Häberle tells the story
as follows:
“The one, according to the lord of the castle,
who can bite through the ring on the castle door, becomes the next
king. The lord of the castle quietly thought, if you don't grit your
teeth at this task, you will endure in life too. "
- Daniel
Häberle
The tower was blown up in 1693 by French soldiers in the Palatinate War of Succession after a mine blast in 1689 failed. The mighty wall shell still rests on the cone of rubble from back then. During the demolition, the grout proved to be more resistant than the red sandstone from which the tower was built.
The tower originally had a
height of around 28 meters. In 1610 it was expanded to 42.50 meters.
Today it still rises 33 meters as a ruin.
One of the admirers
of this ruin was Johann Wolfgang Goethe, who drew this tower on
September 23, 1779 from the bridge over the moat. Goethe had visited
Heidelberg eight times, but kept silent about the fourth visit. So
it was not discovered by research until 1899. Apparently secret
political plans, possibly the creation of a princes' union against
the overwhelming power of Frederick the Great, had brought him to
Heidelberg. In any case, Karl August and Goethe interrupted their
Swiss trip in Heidelberg on September 23, 1779 and spent the whole
afternoon at the castle. Duke Karl August "crawled around in the
beautiful old rubble" while Goethe made the earliest drawing of the
destroyed powder tower.
Apothecary Tower
The tower takes
its name from the Greek word "apotheca", which means something like
"storage room". However, there was never a pharmacy there, it was
housed elsewhere in the castle. Today part of the German Pharmacy
Museum is located there.
The Apothecary Tower is a flanking
tower that was built at the same time as the bell tower and the
Blown Tower. The tower divides the 125 meter long east side of the
castle roughly in the middle. The old loopholes are walled up or
replaced by windows. Around the year 1600 the tower was raised and
converted into a residential tower for the expanding court.
The German Pharmacy Museum only received some rooms in the
Ludwigsbau and in the Apothekerturm for its collection in 1957. This
museum was previously in Munich and - after it was bombed out during
World War II - in the Bamberg New Residence.
The exhibits in
the museum include a first-aid kit or first-aid kit owned by a
general, valuable storage vessels for medicines and mortars from the
Gothic and Renaissance periods. You can also visit four old pharmacy
facilities, so-called “Offices”, from the 18th and 19th centuries.
The center of the museum is the drug collection ("Materia medica"),
in which the drugs from the mineral, animal and plant kingdoms are
exhibited.
Bell tower
The armory made this corner of the
castle so strong that the upper part of the bell tower could be used
for residential purposes. Ludwig V had the round, single-storey gun
turret raised to double its height in order to gain representative
living space. A civilian structure was added to the relatively low
artillery tower from around 1490. For this purpose, the old roof
structure was removed, the masonry increased and a tent roof put on.
The windows of this Belvedere building offered an imposing view over
the Neckar valley.
The bell tower in the northeast corner is
the landmark of the palace buildings. It has been in ruins since
lightning struck here on the night of June 25, 1764. The resulting
fire destroyed all buildings except for the outer walls.
Other plants
Altan
The arbor (today's visitor terrace), the
so-called “balcony of the princes”, offers a good view of the Neckar
valley, the city of Heidelberg and the Heiligenberg opposite with
the Philosophenweg. The door on the right, at the western end of the
arbor, leads into the room of the large barrel. The arbor is
separated from the Friedrichsbau by a space over 8 meters wide,
through which the “Burgweg” leads from the city. Open bay windows
protrude at the outer corners of the arbor (with the layout of the
façades in expensive stone and a wide arbor).
With the
installation of the facade to the arbor, the tradition of building
on the edge of a house on a closed outer wall was broken. Count
Palatine Friedrich II had an inscription with his name and the first
letters of his Latin motto added to the retaining wall of the castle
altar:
"Pfalzgraf Friderich / Churfürst bawet mich / 1552 / D
(e) C (oelo) V (ictoria)" - (Heaven gives victory)
The substructure under the
arbor was used to store weapons, ammunition, supplies and as a
shelter for the soldiers. The arbor does not directly adjoin the
Friedrichsbau, but keeps a distance of about eight meters. The
Burgweg leads through this space from the city.
Below the
arbor in the altan garden, the former “Big Battery”, a heavily
patinated bronze gun barrel is exhibited, at the mouth of which the
French name “Le Coco” (which means “chicken”) is cast. This gun was
cast in the third year of the French Republic, i.e. 1794, in Douai,
France. “Le Coco” was possibly captured when a French troop
contingent was defeated near Handschuhsheim and brought to the
castle as a trophy.
Wilhelm Sigmund tells
the story in his book Alt Heidelberg as follows:
“When a fire
suddenly broke out in the upper rooms of the castle at a banquet or
some other event, all ladies and gentlemen knew how to get to safety
quickly - except for one knight. He was not familiar with the rooms,
stairs and corridors and eventually found all exits blocked by the
fire. The fire found new nourishment in the curtains and other
easily flammable materials. The cries for help from the trapped were
in vain. Nobody heard him, maybe those who were saved believed him
saved.
So he had no choice but to get to safety by jumping
through the window below. And heaven rewarded the knight's bold act.
He reached the bottom unharmed. But through the jump, the strong
boot dug into the ground and left a footprint there that can still
be seen today. The people occupied this strangely recessed spot on
the castle balcony with the name Rittersprung. "
- Wilhelm
Sigmund: Old Heidelberg
Today visitors to the castle try out
whether their shoe fits in the knight's footsteps. According to
another legend, the footprint comes from Elector Friedrich IV, who
jumped drunk from the window of his palace, the Friedrichsbau, and
appeared on the palace terrace.
Burggraben (Hirschgraben /
Halsgraben)
The moat was part of the castle's defenses. In 1962,
considerations were made to keep red deer in the pit area again, but
this was not realized because the trampled ground would have been an
ugly sight. It is conceivable that show hunts could have taken place
in the Hirschgraben.
At the foot of the wall of the west wall
nine depressions can be seen that go back to attempts by French
miners in 1693 to break down the west wall by so-called chain
blasting. But the captured powder was only of limited use due to
moisture, and relief from the Reich troops was on the march, so that
the demolition squads did not have the time to complete their work.
Inundation could have been an additional obstacle for attackers.
The brook on the bottom of the Hirschgraben, a so-called trench,
could be dammed and flood the Hirschgraben.
Elector Johann
Wilhelm, who resided in Düsseldorf, was not satisfied with the
residence in Heidelberg and planned to expand the palace with new
buildings after the western moat was filled.
The Lower Fürstenbrunnen is a small well house that was
built under Elector Karl Theodor to complement the Upper Prince
Fountain and supplied the electoral residence in Mannheim with
drinking water. The water transport over around twenty kilometers to
Mannheim took place at night with mules.
The Latin
inscription also refers to Elector Karl Theodor:
“NOVA ET
SANISSIMA CAROLI / THEODORI PATRIS PATRIAE / SCAT VRIG0 / A MATRE
PATRIAE ELISABETHA / AVGVSTA IN NECTAR RECENS / SANITATIS PARITER.
DESIGNATA ”
"The new and extremely healthy bubbling spring of
Karl Theodors, the father of the fatherland, determined by the
mother of the fatherland Elisabeth Augusta as a new divine health
drink."
If you add the two components together you get the following Latin
word:
"Scaturigo, -inis" = bubbling water, spring water
(Georges),
"Scaturex = scaturigo" = gushing spring water (PONS),
"Scatur (r) igo" = spring water, spring water (Langenscheidt).
The shaft driven into the granite is closed by an iron door,
above which the following Latin inscription can be read:
“NATVRA SANVS. DIRECTIONE THOMAE BREYER CLARVS ”
"Bringing
healing by nature, made famous by the leadership of Thomas Breyer"
The inscription is a chronogram that gives the year 1767.
The casemates (vaults in the fortress building
protected from artillery fire) from the time after the Thirty Years
War are remnants of the aforementioned fortress.
The wall
section below the towers and buildings also served to support the
east section of the castle against the Friesental valley and for
defense purposes. A part of these casemates was buried, but has been
exposed again. They are still completely intact between the
Apothecary Tower and the Krautturm. From the outside you can only
recognize them by the loopholes. These casemates were in some cases
considerably weakened by changes in use and renovations under the
various electors. In 1998, a part of the Friesenbergweg at the foot
of the casemates was therefore closed for security reasons.
The barrage wall, the water casemates, which runs towards the burst
tower, is a double-arched gallery from the 16th century, the lower
part of which barred the access to the moat from the Friesental
valley. The upper part served as a water pipe that carried water
from the Königstuhl into the castle.
The former armory was part of the defense architecture and was the
last fortification phase of the castle. It forms the northernmost
point of the castle complex and protrudes as a bastion far into the
Neckar valley. In the front of the armory, cannon loops alternate
with loops for handguns above.
Weapons, ammunition and armor
were kept in the armory. During the Thirty Years War, the armory
suffered severe damage from shelling from Heiligenberg on the other
side of the Neckar. This damage is still visible today on the
patchwork in the masonry. In 1693 the armory was blown up by the
French in the Palatinate War of Succession. But then it was repaired
again. In 1764 the armory burned down and was not restored.
The Karlsschanze in front of the armory with the Karlsturm was a
purely military building to secure the north gate and was built
after the Thirty Years' War on the site of a ball game house. The
transport to the castle with carts now only goes through the south
gate. The Karlsturm was built in 1683 and blown up by the French
occupation in 1689. Today the former turret has almost completely
disappeared.
Piece garden
The piece garden forms the west terrace of the
castle. Originally this facility was set up by Elector Ludwig V to
set up cannons. By converting this area into a pleasure garden,
Frederick V weakened the castle's defensive power.
Strolling
through the redesigned piece garden was a noble pleasure, to which
there was access through the Elisabethentor. The piece garden, which
did not belong to the Hortus Palatinus, was only included in the
overall complex in the 19th century. At the height of the
Elisabethentor a birdhouse closed it off from the castle entrance.
An avenue ran towards the English building and flower beds covered
the garden area.
When the Thirty Years' War attacked
Heidelberg, the terraces around the castle proved to be a hindrance
to the defense. Since the castle looked like on a presentation plate
from these terraces, walls and entrenchments were hastily erected
above the garden.
When the view is clear, it is possible to
see the Palatinate Forest beyond the Rhine plain from the
Stückgarten. The view down leads over the roofs of the city of
Heidelberg or the moat.
The Elisabethentor
forms the entrance to the garden. In addition to the English
building and the theater in the thick tower, it is one of the
modifications that Frederick V had carried out in honor of his wife
Elisabeth.
The gate is said to have been a surprise for the
young wife and was allegedly erected on a single night in 1615 as a
present on the occasion of her 20th birthday. But there is no
documentary evidence of this. It bears the Latin dedication carved
in stone:
“FRIDERICVS V ELISABETAE CONIVGI. CARISS (IMAE) A
(NN0). C (HRISTI). MDCXV. F (ACIENDUM). C (URAVIT) ”
"Friedrich V had (the gate) built for his beloved wife Elisabeth in
the year of the Lord in 1615."
The Elisabethentor was built
in the style of a triumphal arch and is the first baroque monument
at Heidelberg Castle. The architect of the gate was Salomon de Caus,
one of the two architects who came to Heidelberg with Elisabeth. The
four pillars are depicted as tree trunks with ivy wrapped around
them. All kinds of animals are hidden in the leaves: frogs, beetles,
snails, lizards and squirrels.
Directly next to the Elisabethentor was the bird house, which formed
the southern end of the garden. The orangery, the former bird house,
was enlarged to the moat at the beginning of the 18th century by
including the Elisabethentor. The orangery house was to be converted
into a two-story inn with an apartment for the landlord, which was
rejected by the Electoral Palatinate court. Today only remnants on
the western wall and the stone slabs in the floor show the
dimensions. The plants in the orangery are said to have been brought
to Schwetzingen Castle in 1725.
The approval for the
demolition of the orangery was given on the occasion of a visit by
the elector in 1805. After that, the garden, the palace forecourt
and the terrace garden were combined into one garden and opened to
the public as a public park.
The palace garden had the Latin name Hortus Palatinus (= Palatinate
garden). and was created by Salomon de Caus on behalf of Elector
Friedrich V. This expanded the so-called Hasengärtlein, the late
medieval castle garden. To do this, considerable amounts of earth
had to be moved. The defense capacity of the castle was weakened at
the same time. When Frederick was elected King of Bohemia and moved
his residence to Prague, work on the Hortus Palatinus was stopped.
The gardens were never completed. The form and layout of the
parterres have only been passed on through paintings. The Hortus
Palatinus was considered one of the most famous gardens in Europe in
its time and was regarded by contemporaries as the “eighth wonder of
the world”.
In 1719, Elector Karl Philipp began to bring
parts of Friedrich V's gardens into a baroque form.
After a
chair for forest botany was established at the Technical University
of Karlsruhe in 1832, interest in these plantings declined
significantly. Over the years, evergreen conifers permeated the
park, which was originally equipped with hardwood, and changed the
overall impression considerably.
A garden
house was planned on the Great Scheffel Terrace opposite the palace
complex, but this was not implemented. The terrace reinforcement in
the form of a 20 meter high arch construction is striking. The
garden on Friesenberg could be expanded with this system.
The
Scheffel Terrace is named after a bronze statue of the poet Joseph
Victor von Scheffel, which stood here from 1891 to 1942 and was
melted down in 1942. A new bushel memorial stone was only unveiled
on June 26, 1976. This stone is more modest than the earlier
monument and shows a medallion with the portrait of Scheffel, which
was taken as a cast from the Scheffel grave in Karlsruhe.
Scheffel wrote several poems about Heidelberg. One of them,
"Alt-Heidelberg, du fein", became popular as a student song in Anton
Zimmermann's setting. Scheffel was very well known in Heidelberg,
and there were images of him in many places. The Scheffel Monument
has only been missing on the Scheffel Terrace since the First World
War. Then some students decided to steal a bushel bust and put it on
the bushel terrace. The following morning she was lying damaged on
the floor. A student called a castle attendant and asked
mischievously:
"Tell me, good man, is that the famous dwarf
Perkeo from Heidelberg Castle?"
The castle guide replied
angrily:
„Nää, dess is er net. Awwer gsoffe hott der aach …!“
"No that's not him. But he also drank! "
At the far end of the Scheffel Terrace, where the balustrade bends to the right, was the redoubt. Here Salomon de Caus wanted to build a tower-like building with an open hall. From this location one would have had an impressive panoramic view of the castle, the city of Heidelberg and the Neckar valley. The foundations were still being worked on when work was stopped at the end of 1619.
At the beginning of 1922, the Goethe-Marianne-Bank made of shell
limestone was placed on the eastern edge of the main terrace. This
stone bench goes back to an appeal by Heidelberg professors in 1919
to commemorate the appearance of the West-Eastern Divan a hundred
years earlier.
A hoopoe is depicted in the backrest, which
was considered a messenger of love in the Orient. The top text on
the bench reads:
"And once again Hatem feels the breath of
spring and summer fire."
This relates to Goethe's encounter
with Marianne von Willemer. Goethe had arranged the book Suleika of
the West-Eastern Divan according to speech and counter-speech by
Hatem and Suleika. The two names stand for Goethe and Marianne von
Willemer.
The text below is intended to clarify Marianne's
feelings:
"Where high walls glow, I find my beloved."
A few meters from the stone bench is a two-meter-high Goethe
monument with a bronze head of the poet. It was unveiled on May 5,
1987, Europe Day. The following inscription is carved on the
sandstone base:
"On the high arched terrace there was a time
to come and go."
This inscription is from a poem by Marianne
von Willemer and refers to the high arches of the Scheffel Terrace
with its 20 meter high arch construction.
The
Friesental was included in the overall system. The files noted in
1750 that the area of the Friesental became the “Thier-Garthen”,
where roe deer and stags graze. The slope to the castle was formerly
called the “Cold Valley” because it was only warmed up a little by
the sun.
On the opposite east side of the Friesental is the
Carmelite Grove, in which only a few remains are reminiscent of the
former monastery of the Carmelites, who had built accommodation for
studying confreres here at the Jakobskapelle donated by Elector
Ruprecht I. In the Carmelite Church there was also a burial place of
the Wittelsbacher. Because these were the direct ancestors of the
Bavarian kings, when they resided in Munich, Wittelsbachers had the
coffins transferred to Munich in 1805 and buried in the crypt of the
Hofkirche Sankt Michael.
Inscription stone in front of the
thick tower
On the Friesenberg, on the east side of the castle,
there was also the shooting range of the electoral artillery.
Elector Karl often enjoyed shooting from the guns. An inscription
stone from 1681, on the left in front of the Dicken Turm, refers to
his special achievement, of which he was obviously very proud:
"ANNO MDCLXXXI. DEN XXII JANUARI VON SCHLOS AUF DISEN ORT HAT
WIEDER ALLES HOFFEN AUS STÜCKEN CHURFÜRST CARL MIT KUGEL KUGEL
TROFFEN"
This inscription is intended to commemorate a shooting
performance by Elector Karl on January 22, 1681, who allegedly let
two guns (= pieces) set up opposite each other fire bullets at the
same time, which met in the air. This stone was later moved to the
garden so that more people could take note of it.
The "Winter King" Friedrich V.
Friedrich V married
the English king's daughter Elisabeth Stuart. This marriage was a
love affair, and he spared no expense for his wife. Festivities were
organized at great expense, and he had the Elisabethentor built for
them at the garden.
Friedrich stayed in England for almost
six months from October 1612 to April 1613, and the only 17-year-old
made contact with important architects who later implemented his
renovation and new building plans in Heidelberg Castle. It was Inigo
Jones and Salomon de Caus, who both knew each other well and were in
the service of the English royal family. Caus accompanied the young
couple on the return trip to Heidelberg. Jones also came to
Heidelberg in June 1613. Very soon the construction of a huge
pleasure garden was started. However, the system was intended for
the plain and now had to be implemented on the slope of a mountain.
First of all, earth movements had to be carried out, which
contemporaries regarded as the eighth wonder of the world.
During the reign of
Friedrich V, the Palatinate tried to become the Protestant supremacy
in the Holy Roman Empire, but this ended in a debacle. After
Friedrich had accepted the election of Bohemian king in 1619 -
against the express advice of many advisors - he could not maintain
the crown because he lost the battle of the White Mountain against
the troops of the emperor and the Catholic League. He was nicknamed
"Winter King" because his kingship only survived a little more than
one winter. Now the Thirty Years War entered another phase and
Friedrich became a political refugee.
When Friedrich V moved
away from Heidelberg, it is said that his mother, Luise Juliane von
Oranien, exclaimed:
"Oh, the Palatinate is moving to
Bohemia."
Elisabeth Charlotte
von der Pfalz was Duchess of Orléans and sister-in-law to Ludwig
XIV. When the Wittelsbach line of Palatinate-Simmern became extinct,
Ludwig XIV laid claim to the Palatinate and began the Palatinate War
of Succession, in which the Palatinate was largely destroyed, and
Liselotte had to watch helplessly how their homeland was haunted in
their name.
Liselotte, the granddaughter of Frederick V, was
born in Heidelberg Castle, but grew up with her aunt Sophie in
Hanover and often returned to Heidelberg with her father. At the age
of 19 she was married to the brother of the French king for
political reasons and had an unhappy marriage with him. When her
brother Karl died childless, Louis XIV raised claims to the
Palatinate and tried to enforce these claims with war. Thirty-six
years later in France, she still felt that Heidelberg was her home
and wrote in a letter to the Raugräfin:
“Why didn't the
elector read the lock against right? It’s going to be hard work. "
- Dirk Van der Cruysse: Being a Madame is a great craft
Liselotte's letters from the French court, with vivid descriptions
of the customs of the time, have been handed down. She wrote most of
them to her aunt Sophie, the Electress of Hanover, and her
half-sister, the Raugräfin Luise zu Pfalz.
Liselotte's
childhood took place in a more middle-class setting. Karl Ludwig
loved to go for a walk with his children in the city of Heidelberg
and on the slopes of the Odenwald. Liselotte, who later described
herself as a "great bumblebee", rode at a gallop over the hills
around Heidelberg and enjoyed her freedom. Often she would sneak out
of the castle early in the morning to climb a cherry tree and stuff
herself with cherries. In 1717 she remembers her youth in Heidelberg
as a duchess and writes:
“My god, how often I have eaten
cherries in the mountain at 5 o'clock in the morning with a good
piece of bread! Back then I was funnier than I am now. "
-
Dirk Van der Cruysse: Being a Madame is a great craft
The French engraver Charles de Graimberg fled the
French Revolution and emigrated to England with his family. In 1810
he left for Karlsruhe to begin training with Christian Haldenwang,
the court copper engraver from Baden. He was a friend and neighbor
of Graimberg's brother, Louis. When Graimberg went to Heidelberg to
sketch the castle for a landscape painting, he stayed there for the
remaining 54 years of his life. With his copper engravings of the
castle ruins, he documented their condition and laid the foundation
for the castle's romanticism, which was supposed to save the ruins
from final disintegration.
In his home (today: Palais
Graimberg, at the beginning of the walk to the castle) he set up a
cabinet of curiosities with finds from the castle, which later
became the basis of the Palatinate Museum. Incidentally, he financed
his collection of “antiquities” on the history of the city and the
castle from his own assets. It is thanks to him that the lock is
still standing. He also carried out the first historical excavations
in the castle and lived in the castle courtyard for a while in order
to prevent the citizens of Heidelberg from pulling out building
materials for their houses from the castle.
On behalf of Graimberg,
Thomas A. Leger wrote the first castle guide based on written
sources. Victor Hugo acquired a copy of this guide from 1836 “Le
guide des voyageurs dans la ruine de Heidelberg” (German: “Guide for
strangers through the ruins of Heidelberg Castle”) during his stay
in Heidelberg. This notated copy is on display today at the Maison
de Victor Hugo in Paris.
Charles de Graimberg is commemorated
by a plaque of honor that was attached to the passage to the balcony
in 1868:
In memory of Karl Graf von Graimberg,
born to
castle couple in France 1774,
died in Heidelberg in 1864.
Public transport connection
Since 1890, a funicular has been running from Kornmarkt on the edge
of the old town to the castle, the Heidelberg Mountain Railway.
In addition, the castle has its own bus stop called "Heidelberg,
Schloss"
Line | Course | Comments |
30 | Schlierbach, HITS - Carl-Bosch Museum - Old Town S-Bahn station - Universitätsplatz - Castle - Observatory - MPI Astronomy | Only Mon-Fri mostly as a minibus |
757 | (Schatthausen-) Gauangelloch - Gaiberg - Castle - Central Station | Two buses only on school days |
The castle lighting that takes place several
times a year, a fireworks display with the castle at its center, is
also a staging of the destruction of the castle in 1693. Mark Twain
saw the castle lighting in 1878 and described it as follows:
"[...] with breathtaking suddenness a handful of brightly colored
rockets shot out of the black gullies of the castle towers amidst a
howl of thunder. At the same time, every detail of the huge ruin
against the mountain emerged. Again and again thick bundles of
rockets shot out of the towers into the night, and the sky shone in
the light of shining arrows, which hissed into the zenith, paused
for a moment and then bent gracefully downwards to burst in a
veritable fountain of colorful sparks . "
- Mark Twain:
Stroll through Europe
The castle lighting is also mentioned
in the song Memories of Heidelberg by Peggy March, which was
released as a single on July 7, 1967: At the fireworks, in the old
castle / I saw you, seconds.
The first castle lighting took
place in June 1815 when Emperor Franz I of Austria, Tsar Alexander I
of Russia, King Friedrich Wilhelm III. von Prussia, Crown Prince
Ludwig of Bavaria and many other princes stayed in Heidelberg for
several weeks to agree on the Holy Alliance against Napoleon, who
had just left his exile on the island of Elba. In order to offer the
regents present something special, the Heidelberg magistrate decided
to illuminate the castle ruins. This was done with the simplest
means by setting fire to wood and other combustible materials in the
castle courtyard.
Another castle lighting was arranged in May
1830 by the castle garden engineer Metzger, in honor of the visit of
the emperors of Austria and Russia as well as the king of Prussia.
Today's castle lighting is a reminder of the destruction of the
castle by the French general Ezéchiel de Mélac in 1689 and 1693
during the War of the Palatinate Succession.
The Heidelberger
Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung describes the historical background of the
castle lighting in an article and also goes into the present:
“For decades, around 50 fire brigade helpers have been working
on the castle for every castle lighting. It is an honor to be there;
the father often 'inherits' the honorary position to his son and
grandchildren. Around 30 years ago, Horst Hasselbach was asked if he
would like to help. He hasn't missed a single lighting since then.
Exactly at 10:15 p.m. (after the clock of the Heilig-Geist-Kirche)
he gives the signal 'Attention!' With a signal rocket. Then all
helpers light their fuses. Again exactly 30 seconds later the second
shot comes and everyone holds their fuse to the Bengali fire - and
the lock glows in the red light. "
- Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung,
August 30, 2005
During the summer
Heidelberg Castle Festival, all kinds of outdoor performances are
offered in the castle courtyard. The Castle Festival is organized by
the Heidelberg City Theater and was founded in 1926 with a
production of A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare.
The best known abroad - especially in the USA - is The Student
Prince (German: "The Student Prince"), an operetta about the
fictional Crown Prince Karl Franz von Karlsberg, who falls in love
with the landlord's daughter Kathie while studying in Heidelberg and
this relationship has to give up for reasons of state. This piece is
performed in English (or with German lyrics and English songs) in
the castle courtyard and mainly attracts visitors from overseas. The
operetta goes back to the Alt-Heidelberg play by Wilhelm
Meyer-Förster, which was performed for the first time on November
22, 1901 at the Berlin theater and was a must for all German
students in Japan during the Meiji period, which is what makes
Heidelberg and Heidelberg well known Castle there increased
considerably. The play is hardly known in Germany today, but it was
one of the most frequently performed German theater plays in the
first half of the 20th century.