Location: Rhineland
Standing on the eastern shore of the Rhine river this castle overlooks the town of Saint Goarhausen. Burg Katz was build in 1371 by Count Wilhelm II of Katzenelnbogen. The full name of the castle is Neukatzenelnbogen (German for New Katzenelnbogen), however its nickname Katz that stands for “cat” in German is preferred. The castle is also known for Riesling wine that was first introduced here in 1435 by the owners, the Katzenelnbogen counts. It was bombed in 1806 by the French (again) and was rebuild in the late nineteenth century. Today the Katz castle houses a Natural Science Grammar and Boarding School. However it is a private and closed to the public.
The castle was built around 1360 to 1371 by the Counts of
Katzenelnbogen. The reason was probably the immediate vicinity of the
electoral Trier Castle Maus, which had been under construction since
1356. Furthermore, the castle together with Rheinfels Castle on the
other side of the Rhine formed a customs bar and thus strengthened the
network of castles that the Lords of Katzenelnbogen controlled in
south-west Germany.
The male lineage of the Katzenelnbogener died
out in 1479. The office of count – and with it the castle – went to the
landgraves of Hesse, since Landgrave Heinrich III. von Hessen-Marburg
had married the daughter of the last Count of Katzenelnbogen. As a
result, Katz Castle, like Rheinfels Castle, became a bone of contention
in inheritance disputes between the Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Darmstadt
lines. It was besieged in 1626 and 1647 and partially destroyed. During
the dispute, however, it was repeatedly reinforced by fortifications and
artillery positions.
In 1692, during the Palatinate War of
Succession, the castle was again destroyed during the siege of Rheinfels
Castle by the conquering armies of Louis XIV. During the Seven Years'
War it was conquered by the French in 1758 and returned in 1763.
Napoleon finally had the previously undestroyed castle complex blown up
in 1806, as well as Gutenfels Castle above Kaub.
In 1816 the
castle ruins came into the possession of the Duchy of Nassau, passed
through various private hands in the course of the 19th century and were
finally acquired in 1896 by the then district administrator of the St.
Goarshausen district, Ferdinand Berg. He had the castle rebuilt as a
residence based on the plans of the Cologne architects Schreiterer &
Below, based on the medieval structure and in line with the taste of the
time. Little consideration was given to the medieval remains. The
Rhine-side building is only remotely reminiscent of the former Palas.
Real medieval times are still preserved in the ruins of the keep and in
parts of the shield wall on the mountain side and the kennel.
In
1928 Katz Castle was auctioned off. In 1936 she fell to the Reich Labor
Service. A training camp was set up at the castle.
After the
Second World War, the Federal Republic of Germany, as the legal
successor to the German Reich, became the owner of the castle. It
initially served as a temporary school building for the Hofmann
Institute.
The boarding school had already been opened in 1948
under the management of the Altgelt family. Since the school in St.
Goarshausen was partially destroyed as a result of the war, the grammar
school was relocated to barracks specially built for this purpose on the
castle grounds. After renovation in 1950-1951, the institute in the city
became the secondary school again. Boarding school students continued to
use the barracks for preparation.
Until 1966, students from the
boarding school of the Hofmann Institute were housed in the castle. In
1964 they moved into the newly constructed building of the
Wilhelm-Hofmann-Gymnasium in downtown St. Goarshausen, which had
meanwhile been nationalized.
Until the end of 1987, Katz Castle
was a recreation center for the social work of the Federal Finance
Administration. Due to a missing fire escape, the recreation center was
closed and the castle was put up for sale. The Japanese management
consultant Satoshi Kosugi acquired Katz Castle for DM 4.3 million in
1989 and originally wanted to convert it into a hotel specifically for
Japanese tourists. The expansion did not take place.
Today the
castle is privately owned in Japan. It is not possible to visit the
castle.
Attachment
The castle stands out due to its unusually
small footprint and thus compact design. The central element of the
fortification was the main tower, originally 40 meters high, on the
attacking side of the castle. It was additionally secured by a neck
ditch cut into the rock and a triangular bastion in front of it. The
residential tower was three stories high.
trivia
The second
comic by "Yoko Tsuno" takes place in and around the "Castle Katz".