Location: Bad Kösen, Saxony- Anhalt Map
Constructed: 11th century
There Saaleck, here the Rudelsburg,
and deep
down in the valley
splashing between rocks
the dear old
Saale;
and mountains here and mountains there,
to the right
and to the left -
The Rudelsburg, that is a place
for
feasting and for drinking.
“Dort Saaleck, hier die
Rudelsburg”
Hermann Allmers
Rudelsburg Castle is a well
preserved medieval citadel in Bad Kösen, Saxony- Anhalt region of
Germany. Its construction date back to 11th century.
The Rudelsburg lies
on a west-south-west-east-north-east oriented ridge, which drops
steeply to the Saale and a little less steeply to the other sides.
It consists of a small inner castle at the western end of a large
outer castle that extends over the entire plateau and is located
slightly higher. The outer bailey in particular was used as a quarry
in the 18th century and can hardly be recognized as such today.
However, remnants of the ring walls of the outer bailey in the south
and east have been preserved or have been cut repeatedly during
construction work. Other wall sections in the outer bailey are only
known from excavations in the 19th century. The residences of the
Burgmannen (castrenses), but also various production facilities,
were located in the outer bailey, which was exceptionally large with
a size of approx. 22,000 m².
The main castle, which is
separated from the outer bailey by a deep ditch, forms an irregular
square about 40 × 24 meters around a small inner courtyard. The
approximately 20 meter high Romanesque keep in the southeast is
older than the southern curtain wall. It has an approximately square
floor plan (7.60 × 8.20 meters) and is crowned with a stone
pyramid-shaped spire, which gives the castle its characteristic
appearance. At an unknown point in time, a windmill was built on a
round castle tower, which can be seen on many depictions until the
middle of the 19th century. The mill was destroyed by fire in 1864.
In the basement of the keep there is a recently built dungeon.
The rectangular hall in the west, which was built around 1200
after the decoration on the capitals, is integrated with the
southern curtain wall. Due to its location on a steep cliff above
the Saale, the west side offered the least possible attack surface.
The building of the upper floor of the hall and heightening of the
northern curtain wall were still carried out in the Romanesque
period. In contrast to most other European hilltop castles, this was
not built right up to the steeply sloping cliff edge; presumably to
prevent the curtain wall from collapsing in the event that the rock
edge, which is made of brittle limestone, breaks off.
The
Zwinger in the east is likely to have been built in Roman times. The
walls, which were probably built around the castle at a greater
distance in the middle of the 15th century, together with the corner
towers, formed bastions and a surrounding kennel.
Since the end of the 19th century, numerous archaeological finds have been found on the plateau during construction work, unsystematic excavations or as reading finds, which are now mainly kept in the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle and the prehistory and early history collection of the University of Jena. These are mostly ceramic fragments, but also a garment needle of the Trotha type, which show that the area was already intensively populated in the late Bronze and Iron Ages and was probably already fortified. The new reading finds made in the 1980s and 1990s indicated that there was already an early Bronze Age hilltop settlement on the site of the Rudelsburg, which can be assigned to the Aunjetitz culture. Since the spur, on which the main area of the settlement from the Aunjetitz period is assumed, is occupied by the Rudelsburg, archaeological excavations were carried out in the bailey area and on the slope between 2005 and 2006 as part of a research project funded by the German Research Foundation "The Departure to New Horizons. The finds from Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, and their significance for the Bronze Age of Europe ”carried out by the Department for Prehistory and Early History of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Under the medieval cultural layers, which are up to 3.50 meters thick in places, prehistoric findings could be documented in the loess, so that the complete destruction of the early Bronze Age settlement remains can be ruled out. However, finds of prehistoric ceramic material in the medieval layers indicate a considerable disruption of the prehistoric and thus also the aunjetitz period horizons. A cultural layer was only found on the slope, from which a ceramic fragment of the Aunjetitz culture, a bone and some charcoal could be recovered. However, the finding ended immediately after the excavation profile, so that the archaeological-typological dating could only be confirmed by radiocarbon dating of bones and charcoal. The numerous prehistoric finds come, like most of the relocated finds, from the Late Bronze and Iron Ages.
It was not until the early Middle Ages
that the ridge was used again, as some finds of ceramics from the
Leipzig group in Slavic manufacturing tradition show. The extent,
intensity and duration of the settlement, which can only generally
be put in the 10th and 11th centuries, cannot, however, be
determined. The Rudelsburg, however, is likely to have been one of
the numerous ramparts in the Saale and Elbe area, such as the
Johannisberg near Jena-Lobeda, a few kilometers upstream, or the
Alte Gleisberg near Bürgel. In contrast, there is no historical
evidence for the claim made by local history research at the end of
the 19th century and still frequently updated today that the
Rudelsburg was built in or around the year 1030 or 1050 as a border
fortification.
In the middle of the 12th century, the bishops
of Naumburg had a castle built on the western end of the ridge and
occupied by ministerials. In 1171 a Hugo de Ruthelebesburch was
mentioned for the first time, who comes from the family of the Lords
of Schönburg. The expansion of the castle in its present form began
around this time. Most of it was completed by the end of the 12th
century. In 1238, the Bishop of Naumburg enfeoffed the Margrave of
Meissen Heinrich the Illustrious with oppidum et castrum
Ruthleibesberch, who continued to put the exercise of power on site
in the hands of ministerials.
In a document issued in 1271,
twelve castellani in Ruthleibisberch, d. H. Burgmannen, named by
name. In 1293 a priest was first mentioned at the castle. A
town-like settlement (oppidum) existed to the east of the castle
(castrum) by this time at the latest. The extensive area of the
outer bailey was fortified in the west, south and east with a
curtain wall, moat and rampart and had two gates to the castle and
at the opposite end. This is where the castle and service men
probably had their seat. During the archaeological excavations,
several remains of stone and half-timbered buildings were found that
stretched up to the curtain wall.
Between April 22nd and July
30th, 1348, the citizens of Naumburg under their Capitaneus Johann
von Trautzschen besieged the Rudelsburg by decision of the city
council as part of a feud with the noble Curtefrund. The sources say
that an instrument was used during the siege. It remains to be seen
whether it was a slingshot, a so-called blide, or, as is sometimes
assumed, one of the first firearms. The Rudelsburg is said to have
been stormed and destroyed, with dead and injured on both sides. At
least one of the castellans was also taken prisoner. The outer
bailey, which the city presumably viewed as economic competition and
had been eliminated by the city, was apparently much more affected
than the inner castle. A stone cellar investigated during the most
recent archaeological excavations was completely filled with fire
rubble and contained numerous fragments of tableware, toys and metal
objects.
In 1383 the family of the Schenken von Saaleck from
the house of the Schenken von Vargula was called "Lords of the
Veste, sat at Rottelsburg". A loan document from the Dukes of Saxony
from the House of Wettin dated April 2, 1441 shows the brothers
Rudolf, Günther and Heinrich von Bünau as the owners of the castle.
By 1510 they still had no land outside the castle grounds. In the
Saxon fratricidal war between Friedrich and Wilhelm von Sachsen the
part of Wilhelm III. belonging Rudelsburg besieged again in 1450 and
destroyed a second time. The inner castle was cremated. When the
Wettin lands were divided in 1485, the Rudelsburg was added to the
Albertine line of the house as the property of the Lords of Bünau.
In 1538 the Naumburg bishop Philipp entrusted the lords of Bünau and
knights of the Rudelsburg with the donor fiefs they had accrued, and
a. the Vorwerk Kreipitzsch and nine Hufen in the Camburg office.
In 1581, Rudolph von Bünau auf Teuchern and
Günther von Bünau auf Gröbitz sold the Rudelsburg with the
associated Vorwerk Kreipitzsch and Krölp or Krulpe, as well as the
place Naumburg because of debts to the district governor of
Eckartsberga, Hans George von Osterhausen. During this time, the
castle began to decay, which was only marginally delayed. In the
book Libellus Continens Salae Flvvii descriptionem, eidemqve
adiacentium Oppidorvm, Arcivm, Coenobiorvm Et Episcopalivm sedium,
situs, fundationes & antiquitates by Gregor Groitzsch, printed in
1584, the Rudelsburg is still referred to as arx pulcherrima, the
“most beautiful castle”. The Rudelsburg and the place Lengefeld
belonged as exclave to the Electoral Saxon office Eckartsberga since
the middle of the 16th century. The manor district Kreipitzsch
belonging to the Rudelsburg, however, was subordinate as a fief of
the Hochstift Naumburg-Zeitz to the Amt Naumburg formed in 1544,
which from 1564 was under Electoral Saxon sovereignty.
A
protocol from the year 1612 testifies that the Lord Marshal von
Osterhausen zu Dresden hired a bricklayer and a carpenter to
“support the sunken girders, beams, chairs and rafters in need” at
the castle. According to the information in the court books of the
von Osterhausen family, a court day was held on June 4, 1616 at the
castle. At that time only one househusband lived in the castle, to
which a narrow driveway led. The yard was covered with grass.
Besides a room with a wooden sermon chair, there were deep prisons
with very strong doors. In 1640 the Rudelsburg was burned down by
the Swedes towards the end of the Thirty Years' War. After this
third destruction, the Rudelsburg was abandoned by the residents on
April 14, 1641. The owners moved to Gut Kreipitzsch.
From
1671 to 1774 the nobles von Creutz (en) are the owners of the
castle. In a lawsuit before the Reich Chamber of Commerce in Wetzlar
in 1690 they tried to enforce the imperial immediacy of the
uninhabited castle. The villages of Kreipitzsch, Freiroda and
Lengefeld, which belonged to it, were considered to be independent
fiefs that were either under the rule of the Electorate of Saxony or
that were also free from the empire. In 1770 the owner had the walls
of the outer bailey torn down in order to obtain stones for the
construction of the property. A worker was seriously injured in an
accident at work and became permanently disabled. This was seen as a
bad omen and work was stopped. The outer bailey was almost
completely destroyed by then. Probably only because of this accident
did the ruin of the core castle survive. With the death of the
Hessian captain Friedrich Adolph von Creutz in 1774, the Frohburg,
Ast Rudelsburg line of the male line became extinct.
In the
following years the Counts of Zech and the Counts of Brühl were
named as brief owners of the Rudelsburg with Lengefeld. The von
Schönberg family bought the castle in 1797 and set up a
Fideikommiss, an inalienable aristocratic foundation that was
supposed to keep the family legacy together. In the 19th century,
the von Schönberg family had the coats of arms of the previous owner
families affixed to the courtyard of the Rudelsburg:
In the 19th century the
Rudelsburg became a meeting place for romantically minded hikers,
especially students from Jena, Leipzig and Halle.
The
condition of the building was desolate, and there was no
infrastructure. There was no driveway and there were no closed rooms
in the inner courtyard of the core castle, only rubble and rubble.
In 1818 the cantor emeritus Johann Friedrich Förtsch described the
Rudelsburg:
The inner courtyard of the castle is filled with
rubble from collapsed state rooms, halls, armories and storerooms,
kitchens, underground vaults, cellars and corridors. Therefore one
cannot judge exactly how everything was laid out.
Nevertheless,
more and more visitors came. Back then, the lords of the castle from
the family of the Barons von Schönberg grew wine on the southern
slope of the castle (see: Saale-Unstrut region). One of their former
vineyard workers, Gottlieb Wagner, called "Samiel", first looked
after the dilapidated walls as a castle warden and began in 1824 to
entertain visitors from Gut Kreipitzsch.
During this time, in
1826, Franz Kugler, a Berlin student from Stettin, wrote the famous
song An der Saale hellem Strande in the castle when he stopped here
during a hike through the Saale:
| An der Saale hellem Strande Stehen Burgen stolz und kühn, Ihre Dächer sind zerfallen, Und der Wind streicht durch die Hallen, Wolken ziehen d'rüber hin. |
On the Saale bright beach Castles stand proud and bold, Their roofs are falling apart And the wind blows through the halls Clouds move over. |
In this song, the Saale castles are ruined ruins
that only arouse fantasies of old times. There is still no talk of
drinking and partying and of the Rudelsburg as an event location.
The plaque probably comes from Oskar Mothes, the builder of the
Fallen Column, 1872.
The attractiveness of the castle was
increased by the hospitality so that in 1827 the district
administrator of the Naumburg district asked the landlord Friedrich
von Schönberg whether it was not possible to officially open the
castle to visitors. As a result, a road was even built to the castle
again.
At Easter 1827, Gottlieb Wagner set up the first
tavern at the castle, which was initially only open on Sundays. When
word of this news got around among the students, they moved from
Jena and occupied the castle for three days with loud cheers. A
torchlight procession was offered to the castle owner out of
gratitude.
The improved infrastructure, also through the
Thuringian Railway, which was completed by 1849, and the gastronomic
offer continued to increase the attractiveness of the castle and
also attracted visitors from greater distances, such as the students
from Leipzig and Halle an der Saale.
When a major Prussian
military maneuver was held in the area in 1853, the Saxon provincial
estates invited King Friedrich Wilhelm IV to breakfast at the
castle. Presumably on this occasion, the pump room in the inner
courtyard was built that year, which consisted of a covered seating
area that was open to the castle courtyard. This hall replaced the
old thatched roof, which was supported by simple tree trunks.
In 1863 Hermann Allmers from Rechtenfleth near Bremen (not a
student, but traveling in student company in the Saale valley)
created the student song "There Saaleck, here the Rudelsburg", the
text of which already suggests the new life within the walls. A
bronze plaque from 2005, donated by Corps Teutonia Marburg,
commemorates this.
In June 1848, 500 corps students met at
the Rudelsburg in order to initiate the establishment of an umbrella
organization; The decision was implemented a month later at the
University of Jena. This oldest umbrella association of German
student associations has met in Kösen since 1849 and has been called
the Kösener Seniors Convents Association (KSCV) ever since. The
Rudelsburg is its center and is used for work meetings and festive
events.
(Re)
construction in the imperial era
After the 800th anniversary of
the restored Wartburg had been celebrated in 1867, discussions began
as to whether the Rudelsburg should not also be restored. Then there
was the December storm in 1868, which brought down parts of the
surrounding walls. In 1870 the first repair work was carried out on
the surrounding wall on the west and south sides. The actual partial
reconstruction began in 1871 according to the plans of the royal
Saxon building councilor Oskar Mothes, carried out by master
bricklayer Werner from Bad Kösen. As part of this work, the entrance
and bridge were added, and the knight's hall with front staircase
and adjoining room were restored. A large wall breach was added to
the northeast corner and windows were broken out in the old north
wall. A cannon captured in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 was
placed on the bridge. The work was completed at Easter 1872.
In 1872 the first memorial for the corps students was inaugurated on
the grounds of the Rudelsburg, the column of the fallen in honor of
the corps students who died in the Franco-Prussian War. The Kaiser
Wilhelm I obelisk was inaugurated in 1890, followed by the Jung
Bismarck monument in 1896. The last corps student memorial for the
time being was erected in 1926 in honor of those who fell in World
War I.
The partial construction of the Rudelsburg by Mothes,
the establishment of the Reich in 1871 and the erection of the
monuments in the area of the outer bailey marked a new phase of
student use of the Rudelsburg. While in the first half of the
century the joy of nature and the romantic setting were in the
foreground, the Rudelsburg has now become the representative object
of the corps students of the Kösener SC Association. The association
became an important state-supporting element of the empire, which
was also supported by the fact that the most important political
decision-makers of the imperial era, Otto von Bismarck and Kaiser
Wilhelm II, belonged to Kösener Corps. By founding the Association
of Old Corps Students (VAC), the previously purely student
association has now also created a new source of finance, fed by the
contributions paid by the so-called old men. The Rudelsburg became
the platform on which this new self-confidence was celebrated.
This also meant that the annual event at the
Rudelsburg became more sedate and solemn. Ceremonial speeches at the
monuments and the singing of patriotic songs were part of the annual
Whitsun program on the grounds of the outer bailey during the
imperial era.
During the German Empire and the Weimar
Republic, scale models of the Rudelsburg monuments were often made
and sold to interested parties throughout Germany and Austria. Even
today (as of 2007) these elaborately manufactured pieces are offered
in antique dealers from time to time.
In 1913 Paul
Schreckenbach wrote the historical novel “The Last Rudelsburgers”,
the plot of which is set in the 14th century and which reflects the
Prussian-conservative values of the Wilhelmine era.
During the First World War there
were no student events at the Rudelsburg, but they were resumed
after the end of the war. In 1926 the lion monument was inaugurated
with great effort. This ceremony was seen as a commitment by the
Corps students to the old system of the Empire and was noticed by
the press throughout Germany, sometimes even abroad.
The last
Rudelsburg event of the Kösener Corps students before the Second
World War took place in 1934. In 1935 the Kosen Congress ended with
the dissolution of the association by the National Socialists. The
Rudelsburg was no longer visited.
During the Second World
War, efforts were made at some universities to secretly re-establish
the individual corps, contrary to the instructions of the NSDAP. The
umbrella organization, the Kösener SC Association, should also be
re-established. For this purpose, a meeting was arranged at the
Rudelsburg in 1944, which ended there with a Kommers. Both this
re-establishment and the persecution by the Gestapo had no
consequences due to the chaos of the last months of the war.
After the end of the Second World War, the castle belonged to the
Soviet occupation zone and later to the GDR. The noble landowner was
expropriated and the castle came into the possession of the city of
Bad Kösen.
The student corps on the territory
of the GDR moved to the West. The Kösener Congress met in Bonn in
1953 and then from 1954 to 1994 in Würzburg with a view of the
Marienberg Fortress. The Rudelsburg and Bad Kösen remained a memory
of old times for Corps students in the Federal Republic.
The
Rudelsburg continued to deteriorate, as did the monuments. Larger
metal parts were partially melted down.
Since it was common
in the GDR to use the names of tourist attractions to designate
goods and trademarks produced in the area, the name "Rudelsburg" was
also used in this way, for example to designate a car radio from VEB
Funkwerk Halle and various lime products from VEB Kalkwerk
Rudelsburg, Bad Kosen.
In the 1960s, GDR students began to
make efforts to revive old student traditions. Information and
materials were secretly collected. At the beginning of the 1980s,
the first new connections were established, first in secret, later
more openly. The Rudelsburg was in the focus of the GDR students.
On June 20, 1987, the association Salana Jenensis (later K. D.
St. V.) organized the first alliance commers of the GDR student
associations on the Rudelsburg. At the first event of this kind,
only 19 participants were present, some of whom had come to the
Saale on rafts and in zinc bathtubs. This should refer to the
tradition of boat trips on the Saale, which can be seen on old
depictions.
Since this year, the Rudelsburg has been the
annual meeting point for the student associations that were founded
in the GDR before 1990 and that merged in 1990 to form the
Rudelsburg Alliance.
In 1990 the Corps Thuringia Jena, which had relocated its headquarters to Hamburg in the post-war period, was the first of the “expelled” student associations to return to its old University of Jena. This happened at a time when the GDR still existed. Little by little, almost all corps returned to their traditional universities. As early as 1992, the municipality of Bad Kösen invited the Kösener SC Association to no longer hold its congress in Würzburg, but again in Bad Kösen. A first workshop on this topic took place in 1992. The first Kösener Congress in Bad Kösen after the Second World War in 1995 then also included the Rudelsburg as an event location. This return was associated with extensive repair work in the castle, which enabled Reinhard Schmitt to provide targeted archaeological documentation in 1990 and 1991.
Since the reunification, the corps student
monuments have been gradually restored on the grounds of the outer
bailey. These campaigns are financed by the Kösener SC Association,
through donations from individual corps, but also through private
donations from individual corps students. To this day, the song Dort
Saaleck, here the Rudelsburg for the Kösener Corps students and the
alliance connections, is a song of recognition.
The ruins of
the Rudelsburg are still used for gastronomic purposes. The interior
of the castle and the keep are accessible during the opening times
of the restaurant. The keep offers a view of the Saale valley. In
the lower rooms of the keep are some showcases with exhibits about
corps students.
In the castle there is a branch office of the
registry office of the city of Naumburg, which, together with the
surrounding communities, is now marketing itself and its castle as
Thuringian Tuscany and via the Saale-Unstrut-Triasland nature park.
In February 2018, Thiemo von Creytz, a descendant of the von
Creutz family, returned to the Rudelsburg after 244 years as the new
tenant and operator of the Rudelsburg castle restaurant.