Location: Plön, Schleswig-Holstein Map
Constructed: 17th century
Plön Castle or Plöner Schloss is situated in the town of Plön, Schleswig-Holstein in Germany. It was constructed in 1633- 36 by Duke Joachim ernst von Sonderburg- Plön on a site of a destroyed medieval castle that stood here since 11th century. Duke was fond of physics and especially optics. He used his residence as a personal lab for various experiments. Plon Castle served as his family's private residence until 1761. Between 1761 and 1864 it served as a Royal House of Denmark. It was around this time when the King of Denmark Christian VIII increased his residence and gave it a more Classicist style. Christian along with subsequent Danish monarchs used this residence as their summer retreat house. In 1868- 1920 it was transferred into a Prussian Cadet School. During years of World War II it was housed Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt (NAPOLA) or National Political School under Nazi regime, but after Germany lost the war it was transformed into a Boarding School. In 2002 it became known as Fielmann Akademie Schloss Plon.
The first Wagrian castle
fortification called Plune dates back to the 10th century and was
located on the island of Olsborg in Plöner See. The complex was
destroyed in 1139. The castle was rebuilt under Count Adolf II of
Schauenburg and Holstein. It served as a base during the colonization of
the once Slavic territory. In 1173 the castle was moved to the
Bischofsberg next to the Flecken Plön - on the site of today's Plön
Castle. In the 12th century, Plön slowly developed into a market
location and received city rights in 1239. From 1290 to 1390, the
hilltop castle was the seat of the Schauenburg line from Holstein-Plön
and came into the possession of Duke Gerhard VI of Schleswig after it
died out. Four generations later, the small fortress came to the Danish
royal family via the Dukes of Schleswig (Christian I was Duke of
Schleswig and King of Denmark in personal union). However, Plön and its
castle did not play a significant role in the history of the country at
this time.
In the course of the feud between the counts of Lübeck
and Denmark, the castle was burned down in 1534 during a Lübeck raid. A
first, larger new building was then erected on the castle grounds, which
in part still date from the Romanesque period. In 1564, in defiance of
the Treaty of Ribe, King Frederick II of Denmark transferred a third of
his share in Schleswig and Holstein to his brother John the Younger,
with the brother establishing the partitioned Duchy of
Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg. He also owned Plön and the castle. Under
the early mercantilist Duke Johann, the town and castle experienced an
economic boom. After Johann's death in 1622, the duchy of
Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg was divided among the six male heirs and
new sub-duchies were created; one of them was the Duchy of
Schleswig-Holstein-Plon.
The
first duke of this line was Joachim Ernst of Schleswig-Holstein-Plon,
the second youngest son of Duke Johann. On the occasion of his marriage
to the Gottorf Princess Dorothea Augusta, the new sovereign decided to
build a representative palace for himself and his family. The
construction was financed, among other things, by the considerable dowry
of the bride. In 1632 the old castle in Plön was demolished at the
behest of the duke and today's Renaissance-style castle was built in its
place. The new residence was completed in just three years during the
Thirty Years' War.
The palace was the residence of the ducal
family, but it did not become as important a place in state politics as,
for example, Gottorf Palace. Since the Plön dukes owned other castles
and summer residences, such as the castle in Traventhal and the castles
in Ahrensbök, Rethwisch and Reinfeld, the Plön residence was not
continuously inhabited. Nevertheless, the building was one of the
cultural centers of the Duchy. Joachim Ernst founded a library in the
castle, which was expanded to up to 10,000 volumes by his successors. In
addition, the duke was very interested in physics and optics and
collected various optical devices and measuring instruments in the Plön
residence. After Duke Joachim Ernst, the castle served his son Hans
Adolf, who, however, rarely stayed in Plön as a general in the service
of the emperor and was largely represented in the duchy by his wife and
mother. Joachim Friedrich, who followed Hans Adolf, also resided here.
After he died in debt without male descendants in 1722, the castle stood
empty for seven years and some of the furnishings were handed over to
his creditors.
The castle experienced its cultural heyday under
the last Duke Friedrich Karl from 1729. He led a baroque court and had
the interior of the castle furnished in the rococo style. Friedrich Karl
expanded the complex with the still existing buildings of the palace
square, the royal stables and the riding house, as well as the small
garden palace, now known as the Prince's House. The castle was the
residence of the Plön dukes until the death of Friedrich Karl, who died
without a male heir in 1761. With his death, the fief expired and the
duchy reverted to the Danish royal family. The building was occupied by
his wife Christiane Armgardis as a widow's residence until her death in
1779. It then served as the seat of the bailiff and also from 1777 to
1823 as a residence for the mentally deranged son of Friedrich August I
of Oldenburg, Peter Friedrich Wilhelm. The young man, who was
incapacitated of his ducal duties, was assigned the castle by his
guardian, the Danish King Christian VII, and was allowed to dispose of a
large court here. After his death, the use of the palace as a courtly
residence came to an end for the time being. From 1833 a scholar school
was established.
From 1840 the castle was the official summer residence of the Danish King Christian VIII. For this purpose, the Plön Castle was renovated and some of the furnishings were renewed in the style of classicism. It was also at this time that it received the white plasterwork reminiscent of Danish castles such as Gravenstein and Fredensborg.
After the German-Danish War of 1864, the castle came into Prussian
possession. In 1868 the interior was removed and most of it was taken to
Kiel Castle, where it burned down in an air raid in 1942. The interior
of Plön Castle was converted into barracks and was then used as a cadet
establishment in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein. The sons
of the German Emperor Wilhelm II received their education in Plön from
the end of the 19th century, and for this purpose the pleasure palace in
the garden was expanded into the so-called "Prince's House", on the
Prince's Island an educational farm was set up and in front of the
palace for the newly laid railway line of the "Prinzenbahnhof" built. At
the suggestion of Empress Auguste Viktoria, the palace chapel received a
new painting.
After the First World War, military schools were
banned by the Treaty of Versailles, and from 1920 the palace served as a
state educational institution (“Stabila”). From 1933, Plön Castle and
the area around it were used as a National Political Educational
Institution (officially: NPEA, colloquially: "Napola"), like the former
cadet institutions in Potsdam and Köslin, for an "elite school" of the
National Socialists. The Napola in Plön was the first of its kind when
it opened on May 1, 1933 and was named after SA leader Ernst Röhm. After
his murder in 1934, it was renamed NPEA Plön. The school was headed by
former police major Hermann Brunk, who now held the rank of SA
Standartenfuhrer. On April 23, 1945, before the British took over, the
Napola closed.
In 1945, Karl Dönitz stayed in Plön for a few
days, maintaining a short-term command post here. Before fleeing to
Flensburg-Mürwik, the castle was the administrative headquarters for
parts of the Dönitz government for a day on May 2, 1945. The castle
survived both world wars without any war-related damage. After that,
British occupying troops in Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg, combined in
the VIII British Army Corps under General Evelyn Barker, took up their
headquarters in the castle.
The Plöner Gymnasium has always been in the castle and was called
Kaiserin-Augusta-Viktoria-Gymnasium until 1933. In the post-war period,
the Plön Castle boarding school for boys and girls was established in
1946 with the approval of the British military government. It extended
over the entire castle grounds. The castle itself was used to house the
male students and the "prince's house" to house the female students. The
boathouse and other outbuildings were moved into by the administration.
Classes took place in the neighboring boarding school Schloss Plön,
today's Gymnasium Schloss Plön, on Prinzenstraße.
The use as a
residential building left traces on the old castle building, which was
increasingly in need of renovation. Reports from the years 1986/1988
showed that the plant had a high investment requirement and could only
be saved from decay with amounts in the tens of millions. From 1992 the
sale of the castle was sought and from 1995 the outbuildings were sold.
The sale became necessary because the state did not see itself in a
position to carry out a renovation of the house in accordance with the
monument requirements in addition to the uneconomical operation of the
boarding school. In 2001 the boarding school was closed. The former
students, teachers and employees are still organized in the "Association
of Butenplöner".
Even when I was still at boarding school, the castle was used as a film set on several occasions, for example in the 1969 film Seven Days Deadline and others. with Joachim Fuchsberger and Horst Tappert and from 1997 in the television series Die Schule am See, which was shown in the first. The students of the boarding school often acted as extras in the series. The castle played a similar, albeit brief, role in 1994 in the film Charlie & Louise, Joseph Vilsmaier's film adaptation of Erich Kästner's novel The Double Lottie.
After several unsustainable plans for the castle, an offer was made
by the optics company Fielmann. The possible sale to Fielmann was
discussed controversially in the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament.
After the submission of a comprehensive usage plan, which also provided
for public participation in the castle, it was finally approved. The
castle was sold to the non-profit “Fielmann Academy” in 2002 for a
purchase price of 3.6 million euros. Günther Fielmann reported:
"When
we took over the castle in 2002, it was in a deplorable state. The
spacious Baroque corridors had been converted into student rooms with
lightweight walls, the floor plan and room layout could no longer be
experienced, advanced structural damage wherever you looked."
The
facility was restored over a period of four years in accordance with the
requirements of the monument. The total costs for this amounted to more
than 35 million euros, the state funded the project with 11.8 million
euros. With the conversion, the castle became a modern training center
that can also play a public role again, taking into account its
historical significance.
The work on the castle has been completed since 2006 and after
several days of opening celebrations, the operation as an educational
center was fully resumed. After the master classes had already begun in
2002 during the construction phase, since the 2005/2006 winter semester,
the course in ophthalmic optics/optometry has been offered in
cooperation with the Lübeck University of Applied Sciences, leading to
the Bachelor of Science degree, which is recognized throughout Europe.
In addition, trainees in the optician trade are trained and seminars are
held for specialists and managers. The academy is open to the entire
optical industry. More than 6,000 opticians are to be qualified and
45,000 participant days are to be held every year. In 2006, 13 lecturers
taught here. On the occasion of the reopening, Günter Fielmann said:
"Plon Castle is not a museum, but a living educational institution
under monument protection."
The castle is now mostly used by the
Academy. Some of the ducal state rooms in the east wing with rococo
furnishings have been extensively restored and can be visited as part of
guided tours by prior arrangement. The castle is also made available for
various public and semi-public events. For example, the
Schleswig-Holstein cultural committee met in the knight's hall, the SPD
invited to a conference of officials and the television council of ZDF
to a conference. There was also talk of renting it for the 2007 G8
summit. The Knights' Hall is also a frequent venue for classical
concerts.
Plön Castle combines
several special features: It is one of the few major buildings from
the time of the Thirty Years' War, it is the only surviving castle
in Schleswig-Holstein at a high altitude and it is considered the
first castle in Germany to have a conscious connection to the
surrounding area landscape received. The location on the castle hill
was chosen for purely representative reasons and not for reasons of
fortification. The courtyard terrace with a view over the Plön lake
landscape is a dominant component and the center of the building
ensemble, the sober facades are primarily designed for long-distance
effects. The castle can be seen from afar from the countryside or
from Lake Plön. It was planned purely as a residential palace and
has no fortifications such as walls, ramparts or bastions. The
building was constructed in just three years from 1633 to 1636. The
designs probably came directly from Duke Joachim Ernst, who based
the simple facades on the Habsburg models of the Linz Palace and the
Escorial.
The mighty building dates from a stylistic
transition: at a time when Renaissance art was still alive in the
country, characteristic features of the early Baroque were already
being incorporated into the new palace. It is a three-wing complex
around a court of honor with a horseshoe-shaped floor plan, which
opens to the south towards the Great Plön Lake. The largest wing of
the building is the central north wing, which is adjoined by the
shorter side wings to the east and west. The three-storey castle has
little architectural decoration, its facades are clearly structured
and the most striking adornment is a ring of gables that runs around
the outside and the courtyard facades. The roof of the main building
is decorated with two lantern-like ridge turrets, a clock turret
above the central gable of the courtyard was demolished in 1789.
From the time of the cadet school there is a neo-Renaissance stair
tower on the outer wall of the east and west wings from the 19th
century. The castle stands on a base made of field stones and was
built from brick, which was popular in Schleswig-Holstein at the
time. The outer fronts were originally covered with a brown-red
brick slurry; the brick walls were not - as previously assumed -
exposed. The roof was covered with red pans. It received the white
plaster visible today and the gray slate roofs in the middle of the
19th century.
The Plön Residence is the second largest castle
in the federal state, only Gottorf Castle is larger. The Plön Castle
District is the only largely preserved castle complex from the
building activities of the Plön Dukes. Their other residences,
hunting lodges and summer palaces in Ahrensbök, Reinfeld, Rethwisch
and Traventhal were gradually demolished from the end of the 18th
century due to a lack of interest on the part of the Danish royal
family.
The layout of the castle followed the usual order of
the time: the rooms on the ground floor were used for the
administration of the duchy (under the west wing there were also
four prison cells), the castle kitchen and the servants' quarters
were also housed here. The first floor was used by the ducal
children, while the second floor was occupied by the duke and his
wife and also contained the state rooms. Under the roof there were
more rooms for the servants. The interiors were originally divided
into a ducal wing to the east and a duchess wing to the west,
although this structure was not permanently retained. A central
ballroom already refers to baroque spatial arrangements, as do two
symmetrically arranged shaft staircases, which replaced the stair
towers that were still common in the country at the time. The palace
chapel was placed on the ground floor of the east wing.
The premises of the castle are now mostly occupied by the academy. In addition to the actual training and study rooms, conference rooms and optical laboratories were also set up. There are 123 guest rooms on the castle grounds, most of them in the west wing of the castle. A company restaurant has been opened to cater for training guests. The building received two wheelchair-accessible elevators in the vicinity of the historic shaft staircases.
Due to the centuries of external use, only a few of the original
features of the castle have been preserved. Some of the furniture and
paneling of the rooms, which were decorated in the Rococo style in the
18th century, were given to the Schleswig-Holstein State Museum around
1930. Today they are put together as the so-called Plön Hall in Gottorf
Castle, where they represent the style of the 18th century in the
duchies.
Since the castle was not only to be used as a training
center, but also to be made accessible to the public again, several of
its historical rooms and halls were reconstructed. Some rooms - the
ducal parade rooms - were largely restored true to the original, while
for other rooms - such as the garden or the knight's hall - compromises
had to be found between an almost historical furnishing and modern use.
Since most of the castle's furniture has been lost, the rooms were
supplemented with stylistically appropriate inventory from private
collections and public loans.
Two portals located in the corners of the west and east wings, as
well as the central main portal, lead to the gallery, a long corridor
that connects both side wings. The gallery is directly connected to the
neighboring garden hall via an arcade and is furnished with furniture
from the 18th and 19th centuries.
The garden hall had to be
completely recreated during the restoration of the palace. As early as
the time of the Plön dukes, there was a garden hall here, from which one
could step through large French doors into the garden parterre behind
it, which has not been reconstructed. After the castle had lost its old
function as a residence, the room was remodeled and given other
functions by means of partition walls. At the time of the boarding
school, there were washrooms and showers here.
Today's room
follows the dimensions of the garden salon originally located here, but
there is nothing left of its former decoration. The garden hall serves
as the reception room for the academy. The furnishings and tapestries
come from Günther Fielmann's private collection. Furthermore, there are
paintings that depict the Plön dukes and belonged to the former
furnishings of the castle.
The knight's hall was originally the baroque ballroom in the middle
wing of the castle. At 12 × 26 meters, it is the largest room in the
palace and is located between the stairwells in the middle of the upper
floor, the entire depth of which it occupies. Its wooden barrel vault
extends to the top floor. It is lit on each side of the central building
by seven lower windows and three upper windows in the gable rows.
The hall got its current name in the 19th century, when the castle
served as a summer residence for the Danish royal family. There was
never a knighthood in Plön Castle, the name is based on the knights'
halls in Danish castles. The current furnishings correspond
approximately to those under Christian VIII. It is a sparsely decorated
ceremonial room with classical motifs. At the front of the hall there
are musicians' galleries, the large chandeliers were newly made for the
knight's hall according to old models. There is no longer any furniture
of its own, instead pieces from Günther Fielmann's collection are on
display here. Modern seating is also available for public events.
The suite of rooms for the ducal state rooms is on the second floor
of the east wing. They are among the few rooms in the castle in which
remains of the former furnishings can still be found. They were
originally used for representation purposes and were generally
uninhabited state rooms arranged en filade in which receptions and
audiences took place. As part of the conversion of the palace into an
academy, the rooms were restored and stylistically contemporary
furnishings were added. The rooms date from the reign of Duke Friedrich
Karl and are largely furnished in the Rococo style. Today they are the
highlight of the castle tours and convey an image of the castle in the
18th century.
The ducal antechamber is the first room in the
baroque series of rooms; it once served as a waiting room. Here is the
only preserved stucco ceiling of the castle, which dates back to the
17th century. The overdoors show representations of the Plön residence
from the 18th century and, like the large mirror, are part of the
original furnishings of the palace. The large faience oven is the work
of a workshop in Kiel and was made available to Plön Castle as a
permanent loan from the Hamburg Museum of Arts and Crafts. The niche in
which it is located was designed by Bartholomeo Bossi, who was also
responsible for the stucco work on the garden house.
In Plön,
too, people in the 18th century were guided by the French court
ceremonies, which provided for different preferential treatment for
different social ranks. The small audience room behind the antechamber
was once used to receive people of lower rank. In the course of the
restoration of the castle, the original colors of the panels were
uncovered and these were newly gilded. The silk wallpaper was newly made
for this room based on an 18th-century template. The pieces of furniture
shown here also come from Günther Fielmann's collection. The large
mirror secretary comes from an Altona workshop.
The royal bedroom
marks the end of the state rooms. It served as a second reception hall
for guests of higher social status. This, too, followed the French
ceremonial in which receptions in the bedroom were part of the order of
the day. It is the most lavish room in the suite, and the most striking
adornment is a large alcove that houses the bed. The bed niche,
decorated in cheerful rococo forms, has survived the years in the castle
almost undamaged; during the boarding school this room housed the music
room and a grand piano took the place of the bed. The magnificent bed
itself is not an original piece of furniture from the castle, but it is
similar in style and construction to a four-poster bed that used to be
here.
The ducal library is a little off the baroque suite of
rooms and was used to store the book collections of Duke Friedrich Karl.
The volumes were once in closets behind the original preserved panels
and were auctioned off after 1763. Above the doors of the library room
are aphorisms in Latin, referring to the room's didactic purpose: Curis
curarum suavi levamento - For the pleasant relief and healing of sorrows
and Delectando pariterque docendo - Equally pleasing and instructive.
The chapel is located in the east wing of the castle and its floor
level reaches down to the basement. It is a two-nave space divided into
two bays by a central pillar, which has been there since the castle was
built. At the time of the educational institution, an intermediate
ceiling was installed and the hall was no longer recognizable in its
original form. During boarding school, it served as a bicycle storage
room. The upper floor created by the false ceiling served as a so-called
Remter for student assemblies. In the course of the renovation of the
castle, the chapel was restored, in which the German Foundation for
Monument Protection contributed 75,000 euros. With the restoration, the
chapel hall regained its 19th-century appearance, when it was decorated
with historicist paintings in 1897 at the behest of Empress Auguste
Viktoria. The castle chapel is not currently used as a place of worship,
and there is neither an altar nor an organ. It is part of the guided
tours and is occasionally used for concerts.
Behind the chapel is
the crypt of the castle, in which thirteen sarcophagi from the time of
the Plön dukes have survived. The most elaborate tomb is the coffin of
Duke Friedrich Karl from 1766, which comes from a Copenhagen workshop
and is designed in rococo forms.
West of the Schlossberg were the buildings of the outer bailey. This
farmyard was destroyed by a major fire in 1745, creating the conditions
for the construction of a riding school. The adjoining buildings such as
the royal stables and the large riding hall are from the time and the
representational needs of Duke Friedrich Karl and together with some
other buildings form today's palace square. Since the castle was
renovated, there has been an underground car park under the site that
served as a parade ground for the 19th-century cadet establishment.
The indoor swimming pool is located directly below the castle, an
Art Nouveau building from 1908. Originally built for Kaiser Wilhelm's
sons as a swimming and sports pool, it retained this function even
during the boarding school period. The swimming pool was closed in 1994
before the end of the boarding school, and the building was subsequently
renovated. The former bathing hall and the other rooms are now used by
the city of Plön as a cultural forum for changing exhibitions, and a
restaurant has also found its place here.
South of the castle
driveway is the so-called commander's villa, the home of the commander
of the cadet establishment. The building in the neo-Renaissance
historicist forms was erected between 1895 and 1897 and its design is
based on the 19th-century staircase towers at the castle. After its
renovation, the commander's villa now houses apartments.
The
elongated royal stables were built by Johann Gottfried Rosenberg between
1745 and 1750 and are considered the most artistically valuable building
of this type in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. The late baroque
building, made of unplastered brick, offered space for 56 horses; the
sculptural decoration refers to this purpose. The stables served as a
gym during the boarding school, today the classrooms, secretariat and
library of the master school are housed here. The former hospital is
located to the right of the Marstall. The brick building, erected in
Wilhelminian style in 1896/97, served as a hospital for the cadet
institute. Today it also houses privately used apartments.
The
riding house at the western end of the square – sometimes also called
the clock house because of the clock in the gable – probably also comes
from Rosenberg. Built in 1746, the wide building with a high central
projection was originally used for tournaments and other equestrian
events. The building was reconstructed in 1892 and apartments were
furnished inside. After renovation, the house is currently used as an
information center for the Holstein Switzerland Nature Park and presents
various exhibitions on the subject of nature in Schleswig-Holstein.
The so-called gatehouse is located on the castle terrace, in front of the east wing. The small villa from 1895 was the residence of the castle gatekeeper, who controlled the main entrance to the then cadet academy from here. On the upper floor of the building there were rooms that were used as a detention center. The house housed a gallery. There is now a café and a bar here.
Today's castle park was created from several previous gardens that
were laid out over the centuries and later neglected. The first gardens
of the castle were located directly below the castle hill. After the
start of construction of the residence, the southern slope was laid out
as a vineyard, taking the hillside gardens of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli
as a model. This hillside garden existed until 1729. A garden parterre
on the north side of the palace, originally located in front of the
garden hall, also no longer exists.
A baroque garden was laid out
in the 18th century, which took into account the need for representation
at the time. Since the castle is located at a high altitude and is also
surrounded by the town of Plön on two sides, it was not possible to
plant a plant designed around the castle as a focal point. Instead, the
area behind the riding school was chosen as the location for the new
park, which was aligned with a central pavilion, a maison de plaisance,
which later became the prince's house. The spacious garden was laid out
by Georg Dietrich Tschierske on behalf of Duke Friedrich Karl between
1730 and 1748 and, along with the gardens in Jersbek and Eutin, was one
of the most important gardens of the 18th century in the states of
Schleswig and Holstein. Tschierske also laid out the equally important
park of the palace in Traventhal for the duke. The Plön Garden consisted
of ornamentally designed parterres in front of the garden house, which
merged further into a bosquet zone. The forest to the west of the park
served as a hunting ground and was opened up by the so-called
Siebenstern. This hunting star is still preserved today, but is hardly
recognizable as such due to the growth of trees in recent centuries.
After the end of the duchy, the garden became overgrown due to lack
of care and was later partly used as a kitchen garden. In the 19th
century, the park was redesigned by the landscape architect Christian
Schaumburg, in line with the fashion of the time, into an English-style
landscape garden. The large avenues of linden trees were not felled,
they have been preserved to this day and frame the area of the otherwise
lost baroque garden, the basic features of which can still be seen from
the air. In 1930 a sports track was built in the rear third of the park.
The Prince's House is a small pleasure palace that, with its curved
garden side and interior decorations by Bartolomeo Bossi, is one of the
few Rococo buildings in Holstein. It was built between 1747 and 1751 for
Duke Friedrich Karl, also by J. G. Rosenberg, based on the model of the
Falkenlust hunting lodge. At the end of the 19th century, three window
axes were added to the sides, with the additions being designed as flat,
protruding projections. The house received its current name when it
served as a school for his sons during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
During the First World War it housed a military hospital, during the
boarding school period it served as a residential building for the
students.
Concerts and similar events take place in the Prince's
House all year round. The registry office of the city of Plön also
offers weddings in the garden or marble hall. The Prince's House can be
visited as part of regular guided tours.