Nickern Castle: A Renaissance and Baroque Castle in Dresden
Site at a Glance
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Electorate of Saxony, German, Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Saxony, Margraviate of Meissen
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page4 sections
History
Nickern Castle is a castle in Nickern, southeastern Dresden, Germany, whose history reaches back to the 12th century and includes later Renaissance and rural Baroque phases.
Noble ownership
The Karrasse, an old noble family from Upper Saxony and Meissen, held the castle before it later belonged to the Ziegler family, whose members were bourgeois rather than noble. In 1511, the Alnpeck family, a locally influential Saxon noble family, acquired it.
Reuse and later ownership
In 1945, the last owner was expropriated, meaning deprived of the property by official action, and apartments were established in the castle. A fire damaged parts of the complex in 1960, and club rooms were housed there during the 1980s.
After Dresden renovated the castle, the city sold it to a private owner in 2004. The sale and public expenditure drew criticism in 2005 through the Schleudersachse, a negative award for waste of public funds. A local-history room later operated in the castle, and some rooms were used for private events. By 2014, the building also housed a tailoring workshop and a local-history museum.
Remains
The castle stands on the remains of a 12th-century water castle, a fortified residence whose defenses used water. After the Alnpeck family acquired it in 1511, it was remodelled as a Renaissance castle. Hans von Bose, a member of a Saxon noble family, undertook further remodelling in 1693, giving the building a rural Baroque character. A tower was added in 1870.
