Location: Rhineland
Open: Apr-Oct: 9am - 6pm
Nov-Mar: Sat & Sun 10am - 5pm
Castle Rheingels is located on the left side of Rhine River.
Castle Rheingels overlooks the town of Saint Goar named so after a
Aquianian hermit Goar who settled here in the mid 6th century. His
burial site is a beautiful 11th century crypt of the Stiftkirche.
The fortress was found in 1245 by Count Diether V of Katzenelnbogen
as a base for his toll- collecting operations. In medieval times
collection of dues was rather easy. Couple of cannons on the hill
overlooking the river could easily sink any ship that failed to pay.
The Landgraves of Hesse converted the castle into a Renaissance
mansion and latter owner added defenses in the 17th and 18th
centuries. In fact it wasn’t until Revolutionary army of France that
the castle actually was taken in 1794. It was destroyed in 1797 then
they retreated, but you can hear a lot of bad things that French did
in the region from the locals.
Parts of the castle’s outer
buildings were converted to hotel, restaurant, museum and a wellness
center. One can easily get lost in the underground labyrinths of the
castle that is well preserved. Taking a flashlight might be a good
idea.
From its construction to the 18th century
The castle was built by
Diether V. von Katzenelnbogen in 1245 as a customs castle for ships
sailing up the Rhine. According to the only contemporary source, it is
mentioned in the Wormser Annalen under the year 1256 that Diether V
broke the peace against the citizens of Mainz. The reason was probably
the tariffs that had been levied for a long time. The subsequent siege
by an army of the Rhenish League of Towns was unsuccessful; this gave
the castle a reputation for being impregnable. The Hessian chronicler
Wigand Gerstenberg embellished the story further in 1493, which cannot
be substantiated by contemporary sources.
In the 13th century,
the county of Katzenelnbogen was divided into the upper county in the
area around Darmstadt and the lower county with the Rheinfels residence.
Around 1360/1370, under Count Wilhelm II von Katzenelnbogen (1332–1385),
a large-scale expansion of the core castle took place. Further
expansions affected the women's shelter (now a museum) with a round
corner tower on the Rhine side and a stair tower on the courtyard side,
as well as the mighty shield wall, flanked by two towers, a clock tower
and a gunsmith's tower. From 1360 to 1371, the Count built
Neukatzenelnbogen Castle, known as Katz Castle, on the opposite side of
the Rhine. This made it possible to levy duty on ships sailing down the
Rhine (St. Goar double duty).
After the upper and lower counties
were reunited in 1402, the residence remained at Rheinfels Castle. Under
Count Johann IV and his son Philipp, courtly life reached its peak in
the 15th century at Rheinfels Castle. According to more recent findings,
the round keep was first raised under Philip and topped up with a butter
churn tower (see Marksburg). With a total height of 54 m, this was the
highest known keep of a German castle and on a clear day you could see
far into the Hunsrück and Taunus. Philip's sons Philip the Younger (†
1453) and Eberhard († 1456) died young; so that county and castle fell
in 1479 to Landgrave Heinrich III. von Hessen-Marburg, who was married
to Anna, Philipp's daughter. In a decades-long inheritance dispute with
the House of Nassau, the landgrave was able to assert himself. With
Heinrich's son Wilhelm III. his family died out and Rheinfels fell with
Marburg to Wilhelm II of Hesse, who reunited the entire Landgraviate of
Hesse in one hand.
Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous of Hesse had
the castle converted into a Renaissance palace. After his death, it
became the seat of the short-lived Landgraviate of Hessen-Rheinfels by
way of inheritance among his sons. Landgrave Philipp II of
Hesse-Rheinfels (1541-1583) had the castle renovated and expanded. In
the course of the Marburg succession dispute between the Landgraviates
of Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Darmstadt, the Lower County including
Rheinfels Castle was awarded by the Imperial Court of Hesse-Darmstadt in
1623. However, Landgrave Moritz von Hessen-Kassel did not recognize the
verdict. The rightful owners had to turn to the Reichsgericht again.
Ferdinand of Bavaria, Elector and Archbishop of Cologne, who was to
carry out the sentence, had the castle besieged in 1626, and after heavy
fighting, Rheinfels was handed over to Hesse-Darmstadt on September 2,
1626.
After Landgrave George II of Hesse-Darmstadt had restored
the castle, it was conquered again in 1647 by Hesse-Kassel. On April 14,
1648, the two Hessian Landgraviates concluded an agreement whereby
Rheinfels Castle and the town of St. Goar were divided between
Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Darmstadt. In 1649, Landgrave Ernst von
Hessen-Rheinfels-Rotenburg, son of the former Landgrave Moritz von
Hessen-Kassel, made Rheinfels his residence and in 1657-1674 expanded it
into an extensive fortress facing France. He founded the (second)
younger side line "Hesse-Rheinfels" (later Hessen-Rheinfels-Rotenburg)
of the landgrave house of Hesse-Kassel and resided at Rheinfels until
1692.
On a research trip through Germany, the Jesuits and
Bollandists Godefridus Henschenius (1600-1682) and Daniel Papebroch
(1628-1714) were invited to dinner on August 10, 1660 by Landgrave Ernst
I and his wife at Rheinfels. Papebroch writes about it:
"They hold
court in a very heavily fortified castle on a very high hill, yet
offering comfortable living quarters, as far as we could gather from
various rooms through which we were shown. Very beautiful is a chapel in
the castle with a gilded ceiling, in fact a ceiling covered with golden
inscriptions on a dark background; on the walls there are pictures of
the passion story. Under the singers' gallery you can see the
Landgrave's coat of arms with the following inscription: 'Ernst, the
first of his family to return to the Catholic Church, full of burning
hope that many may follow him'. Then one saw his individual coats of
arms, piece by piece, each with its motto underneath. The most notable
verses were written under a double cross, which is the coat of arms of
Hersfeld Abbey, which fell to the Landgrave in the Peace of Westphalia;
they read: 'Involuntarily I add this coat of arms to my coat of arms,
because what is yours should be given to you crucified Jesus'."
–
Udo Kindermann: Art monuments between Antwerp and Trento: descriptions
and evaluations of the Jesuit Daniel Papebroch from 1660; First edition,
translation and commentary, Böhlau Verlag, Cologne, 2002,
Landgrave Ernst, in constant financial difficulties, concluded a secret
contract with the French King Louis XIV, in which he promised to give
him Rheinfels Castle in return for high pension payments. Landgrave Karl
von Hessen-Kassel found out about this plan in good time, took the
castle by surprise and defended it against the French, besieged several
times. The castle was defended under Georg Ludwig (1655-1696) von
Schlitz called von Görtz, major general in Hesse-Kassel. He was rewarded
with a lifelong governorship.
During the War of the Palatinate
Succession (1688–1697), French troops led by Lieutenant-général Comte de
Tallard launched an attack on the fortress in December 1692, which
failed due to the resistance of the garrison from Hesse-Kassel. The
Comte de Tallard had promised King Louis XIV the keys to Rheinfels
Fortress as a New Year's gift. During a reconnaissance ride on the
Wackenberg with his officers, he was hit by the bullet of master wood
turner Johann Kretsch, a member of the rifle company defending the city
of St. Goar. Posting on the gallery of the collegiate church, he aimed
his double hook (heavy rifle) at the one with the tallest plume. Despite
the very long distance of 200 m for rifles of the time, he hit his
target, the bullet penetrated Tallard in the chest and went out again on
the side. Tallard, known for being foolhardy, was seriously injured and
had to resign his command; Maréchal de camp Thomas de Choisy took over
the supreme command. This stalled the siege, which probably helped save
the fortress. In the end there were 3,000 defenders against 28,000
French soldiers. In two assault attempts, 4000 French died and 6500 were
wounded; the defenders suffered 564 dead and 885 wounded. The second
attack was also repelled, and when the relief army approached on January
3, 1693, led by Landgrave Karl von Hessen-Kassel, consisting of
Palatinate, Brandenburg, Munster and four Hessian regiments, the French
withdrew.
Landgrave Karl tried in vain to persuade the German
Emperor to keep Rheinfels Castle in his favor. He found allies in
England and the Netherlands. When these two countries signed the Peace
of Utrecht with France in 1713, the peace treaty included the provision
that Hessen-Kassel was allowed to keep Rheinfels Castle and the town of
Sankt Goar. The descendants of Landgrave Ernst I of
Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg insisted on the return based on a judgment by
the Emperor in 1711. After a legal dispute, the Landgrave of
Hesse-Kassel transferred the castle in 1718 to a grandson of Ernst of
Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg, dem Landgrave Wilhelm the Younger of
Hesse-Wanfried, who now called himself Wilhelm of Hesse-Rheinfels.
Hesse-Kassel was granted the right to occupy the castle in the event of
war.
After the death of Wilhelm von Hessen-Rheinfels in 1731, his
half-brother Christian von Hessen-Wanfried, who called himself Christian
von Hessen-Eschwege after the landgrave's residence was moved to
Eschwege, took over the Landgraviate of Rheinfels with the castle.
During another troop attack in 1734, led by the French Free Corps leader
Kleinholz with 200 dragoons and 800 men, Rheinfels Castle was again
handed over to Hesse-Kassel. In a house contract from 1735,
Hesse-Eschwege-Wanfried finally waived the occupation rights of the
castle and finally ceded it to Hesse-Kassel.
Christian von
Hessen-Eschwege-Wanfried died in 1755 as the last descendant of the
Hessian side line Hessen-Wanfried and the Landgraviates Hessen-Eschwege
and Hessen-Rheinfels with St. Goar and Rheinfels Castle fell to
Hessen-Rotenburg in accordance with the house contract and remained
there with interruptions until 1815
When French troops of Marshal
Soubise attacked the castle on December 1, 1758 during the Seven Years'
War (1756-1763), a defense by the land militia stationed there against
the far superior and better-armed attackers was not possible; Rheinfels
was surrendered without a fight by its commander, Colonel Henrich Donat
von Freiwald from Hesse-Kassel.
French revolutionary troops in
November 1794
Major General Philipp Valentin von Resius, a
77-year-old old man, was in command as commander of the fortress. The
fortress itself was well provisioned and the garrison of 3,000 men was
sufficient, not counting the garrisons of the neighboring gun batteries
on the surrounding hills. On November 1, 1794 (All Saints' Day) the
disaster took its course: When a French drummer heard that a siege army
of 30,000 men (Armée de la Moselle) was already ready to storm, the
commander and the entire team ran headlong over a hurried erected bridge
to the other side of the Rhine. The withdrawal of the garrison was so
hasty that the outposts waited in vain for their relief and the French
troops under the command of Général de division Jean René Moreaux found
the half-laid tables of the last meal in the fortress on November 2nd.
Due to the evacuation of his fortress without a fight, the landgrave
sentenced the commander to death, this sentence was later commuted to
life imprisonment after the loss of all titles and honours. Von Resius
was held in custody in Spangenberg until death released him in 1798 at
the age of 80.
The French revolutionary troops destroyed the
fortress: in 1796 the fortifications in front of it were blown up, in
1797 the palace and keep.
Victor Hugo wrote about the
consequences of the explosion (which he attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte
in 1807) on his Rhine trip in 1840: "Strange! Everything burst apart
with the exception of the four walls of the chapel. One does not enter
this place of peace without a certain melancholy emotion, which alone
saved from general collapse." And about the situation at that time he
concluded: "Nowadays the Rheinfels ... is a kind of outlying farm. A few
vines thrive poorly, and two or three goats graze in them."
In
1812 the ruins were sold as French state property to the St. Goar
merchant Peter Glass. Most of the material recovered during the
demolition was used in the construction of Ehrenbreitstein Fortress near
Koblenz.
From 1815 to today
In 1815, Victor Amadeus von
Hessen-Rotenburg, the last landgrave of Hessen-Rotenburg, ceded the
areas on the Rhine (St. Goar and Rheinfels) to Prussia and received the
principalities of Ratibor and Corvey as compensation.
After the
ruins had been used as a quarry for some time, Prince Wilhelm of
Prussia, later Kaiser Wilhelm I, bought them in 1843, thereby protecting
them from further destruction. The town of St. Goar has owned the castle
since 1925. The municipality carried out restorations in 1963/64 and in
the 1990s.
name spellings
In the course of its history, the
castle was mentioned many times in documents, records and files. In the
13th century, the spellings Rinefels (1252) or Rynvels, Rinvelz (1266)
and Ryuels (1271) are documented. In the 14th century Rinuels (1316),
Rinvels (1330) and Rynvels (1326 and 1338-42 respectively), in the 15th
century Rynfels (1464) and Rinfels are common. Variants were Rinfelsch
(1483), Rheynfelsch (1508), Rhinfelz (1555), Reinfelsch and Reinfelß. In
the middle of the 17th century Rheinfels appeared for a while (inscribed
drawing by Wenzel Hollar 1635), at the end of the 17th century
Rheinfeltz and Rheinfelss (1690) are documented and since the second
half of the 18th century Rheinfels has prevailed. The spelling of names
Rhynfels and Rhinfels can be found on English and French drawings and
engravings up to the 18th and 19th centuries.