Castle of Wartbourg

The castle of Wartbourg (German Wartburg ) is located on a cliff of 410 m, in the south-west of Eisenach in Thuringe, from where it overhangs the city. The castle was built in 1067 by the count Louis the Jumper, thus named because it is told that he was imprisoned in a tower of which he escaped while jumping from the top in the ditches and which he left there except).

In 1999 it was registered on the Liste of the world heritage like “exceptional monument of the feudal period in Central Europe related to cultural values of universal significance”.

It was the seat of the counts de Thuringe until in 1440. It was also the center of a culture of refined court, as testifies to it the history to a contest of ménestrels, the Sängerkrieg, around 1207, which saw to clash participants like Walther von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Albrecht von Halberstadt, and well of others. Wagner put in scene this episode in its opera Tannhäuser.

Holy Elisabeth of Hungary lived in Wartbourg when it was wife of the count Louis IV of Thuringe of 1211 with 1228.

From May 1521 at March 1522 Martin Luther, then with the round of applause of the Empire was put at the shelter in the castle by Frederic wise the. It was for this period that under the name of Junker Jörg (the Georges knight), it translated the German New Testament into .

The castle was renovated through its existence, and several old parts were covered or transformed by later constructions and additions. Of 1952 with 1966, the government of the German Democratic republic restored it as it was at the 16th century, in particular the part of Luther with its floors and walls in original wood panels.

The Palais Romanesque (the Palas , Landgrafenhaus , or Large Hall) is oldest and architecturalement most impressive of the buildings. Beside the Chapelle it contains Sängersaal (Hall of the ménestrel S), with frescos on the triumph of Christendom in the Festsaal .

The door behind the drawbridge is the only access to the castle as that always was through the centuries.

The house of the knights of the west coast of the drawbridge is on constructed half and date of the 15th century. It was probably used as residence for being useful and the guards.

There are two turns, that of the south (only preserved medieval castle, having been set up in 1318), which contains the keep and the reserve (finished in 1859, incorporating partially the foundations of its medieval predecessor and who has the reference mark of the Latin cross at the top; and the Vogtei (the home of the baillif) in which the part of Luther is located and to which an oriel window of the 15th century was attached in 1872. Two covered gangways, the Elisabeth passages and Margaret, form the ring of defense of the 15th century and its frames of protection are supported by balconies out of wooden. And finally the new room of the women contains the collection.

Mention must be made arms manufacture Rüstkammer which contained approximately 800 parts, since the splendid armor of the king Henri II of France, to the objects of Frederic the wise one, of the pope Jules II and Bernhard von Weimar. They all were confiscated by the Soviet occupying army in 1946 and disappeared in the Soviet Union. Two helmets, two swords, the armours of a prince and a child were returned in the years 1960. The new Russian government promised to help to find them and to return them.

During its long existence the castle was and is always a place of pilgrimage and its significance in the history of Germany is important.

External bonds

official site

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