Katz castle

Katz castle, Sankt Goarshausen, Germany. Katz Castle (German: Burg Katz or Burg Neukatzenelnbogen) is a castle above the German town of St. Goarshausen in Rhineland-Palatinate. The castle stands on a ledge looking downstream from the riverside at St. Goar. It was first built around 1371 by Count William II of Katzenelnbogen. The castle was bombarded in 1806 by Napoleon and rebuilt in the late 19th century, in 1896–98. It is now privately owned, and not open for visitors.

Description

Notes and references

The History of the County of Katzenelnbogen and the First Riesling of the World. Germany

History

The castle was built between 1360 and 1371 by the counts of Katzenelnbogen. Its construction was the response of the powerful counts of Rheinfels Castle to the construction of the Keurtrier Castle Maus, which started just a stone's throw away from 1356. Together with the Rheinfels fortress on the left side of the river, the new castle construction of the counts of Katzenelnbogen on the right side formed an important bastion for tolling the Rhine.

With the extinction of the Katzenelnbogen family in 1479, the castle passed to the Landgraves of Hesse. Consequently, both Katz Castle and Rheinfels Castle became a point of contention in the Hesse War, the hereditary struggle between the lines of Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Darmstadt. The castle was besieged in 1626 and 1647 and partially destroyed. During the battle, however, the castle was also reinforced several times by fortifications and artillery positions.

In 1692, the castle was again damaged during the siege of Rheinfels Castle by Louis XIV 's French drive for conquest. During the Seven Years' War, the castle was captured by the French in 1758 but returned in 1763. Finally, in 1806, Napoleon had the castle complex, which was still intact up to that time, blown up, as was the case with Gutenfels Castle near Kaub.

The ruin came into the hands of the Duchy of Nassau from 1816, then had several owners and finally came into the hands of the then district commissioner of Sankt Goarshausen, Ferdinand Berg. He had the castle rebuilt as a residence by the Cologne architectural firm Schreiterer & Below. Little account was taken of the medieval remains. The part of the complex on the Rhine side is only vaguely reminiscent of the former castle. However, the ruin of the bergfried, parts of the defensive wall on the mountain side and the fortress are still medieval.

In 1928 the castle was sold. From 1936 the complex fell into the hands of the Reichsarbeitsdienst and was subsequently used for various purposes. Because the building no longer complied with the fire regulations in 1987, the castle was put up for sale. The Japanese entrepreneur Satoshi Kosugi managed to acquire the complex for the price of DM 4.3 million. He initially wanted to convert the castle into a hotel especially for Japanese tourists. However, this expansion did not take place. Today, the castle complex is still in Japanese hands. It is therefore not possible to visit the castle.

History

Katzenelnbogen originated as a castle built on a promontory over the river Lahn around 1095. The lords of the castle became important local magnates, acquiring during the centuries some key and highly lucrative customs rights on the Rhine. The Counts of Katzenelnbogen also built Burg Neukatzenelnbogen and Burg Rheinfels on the Rhine.

The male line of the German family died out in 1479, while the Austrian lineage continued, and the county became disputed between Hesse and Nassau. In 1557, the former finally won, but when Hesse was split due to the testament of Philipp the Magnanimous, Katzenelnbogen was split as well, between Hesse-Darmstadt and the small new secondary principality of Hesse-Rheinfels.

When the latter line expired in 1583, its property went to Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), which added the inherited part of Katzenelnbogen to its side-line principality of Hesse-Rotenburg. After the Congress of Vienna, this part of Katzenelnbogen was given to Nassau in exchange for property that had been taken away from it; after the War of 1866, with all Nassau, it became part of Prussia.

In 1945, Hesse-Darmstadt was united with most of the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, which included the former Hesse-Kassel along with Nassau and the formerly Free City of Frankfurt, to form the federal state of Hesse. Thus, Hesse now includes the larger part of former county of Katzenelnbogen.

A smaller part of Nassau, including the old castle and village bearing the name of Katzenelnbogen, ended up as part of Rhineland-Palatinate (part of the Rhein-Lahn and Westerwaldkreis districts). William III of England a Prince of Orange had the title Katzenelnbogen in his reign from 1689-1702 and today one of the titles of the King of the Netherlands (the House of Orange-Nassau) is that of Count of Katzenelnbogen. External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Katz Castle.

Katz Castle

Katz Castle in the Lorelei Valley

Katz Castle near the Lorelei