Castle of Plauen: A Medieval Vogt Stronghold in Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Bohemia
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page15 sections
History
The Castle of Plauen in Germany was established around 1250 as a hilltop stronghold for the Vogts of Plauen, medieval territorial lords whose name gave the surrounding Vogtland its name. Built above the town and the stone bridge over the White Elster, it became the principal seat of the Plauen branch of the Vogts and later developed through medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque phases.
Origins and the Vogts of Plauen
The settlement of Plauen had earlier links with the Counts of Everstein. From about 1100, the counts brought settlers into the Dobnagau to clear land and establish cultivation. Their first fortified seat stood on the Dobenau rock in the Syratal. They later established a town castle at the southwest corner of Plauen’s walls. The surviving remnant of that castle is the present Malzhaus, first mentioned in 1224 and possibly built about a century earlier.
The neighboring Vogts of Weida served the Eversteins as administrative ministerials, officials who carried out administrative and military duties for a lord. Heinrich II of Weida, Gera, and Greiz may already have held Plauen as a fief, meaning land or jurisdiction granted in return for allegiance and service. His son Heinrich IV used the title Vogt of Gera and Plauen from 1237. A territorial division around 1244 created the separate lordships of Weida, Gera, and Plauen.
Heinrich I of Plauen probably built the new castle on a prominent spur above the earlier town castle. In 1278, his brother-in-law Konrad of Everstein transferred the town of Plauen and the Dobena district to him. Heinrich I’s elder son Heinrich II established the Plauen line, while his younger son Heinrich Ruthenus founded the line that later became the Reuss princely house.
Loss of territorial power
During the fourteenth century, the Vogts lost influence to the Margraves of Meissen and the kings of Bohemia. The House of Plauen came under Bohemian feudal overlordship in 1327. During the Vogtland War of 1354 to 1357, the Vogts lost most of their possessions to Emperor Charles IV and the Wettins, the Saxon ruling dynasty that later acquired control over Plauen. In 1356, Charles IV made the lordship of Plauen an hereditary fief of the Bohemian crown.
Hussite forces led by Andreas Prokop besieged Plauen in 1430, captured the castle, and destroyed it. The Hussites were followers of the reformer Jan Hus who formed a major religious and military movement in fifteenth-century Central Europe. A layer of fire found during excavation records destruction affecting parts of the castle during this attack. Timber from the Red Tower dates through dendrochronology, the comparison of annual growth rings, to around 1425, when Heinrich X was already fighting the Hussites.
In 1466, the expulsion of Vogt Heinrich II ended the Plauen Vogts’ rule over the Plauen and Voigtsberg offices. Elector Ernst of Saxony received the territory as a Bohemian fief and installed officials at the castle. Heinrich III of Plauen finally gave up his claims to Plauen in favor of the Wettins through the Treaties of Brüx in 1482.
Renaissance transformation and wartime destruction
King Ferdinand I of Bohemia enfeoffed the former Heinrich II’s grandson with Plauen in 1547. He adopted the title Burgrave Heinrich IV and was made a prince of the Holy Roman Empire at the Diet of Augsburg in 1548. The castle had by then developed into a Renaissance complex, but it burned out in 1548. After Heinrich IV’s death, his sons Heinrich V and Heinrich VI pledged the territory to Elector Augustus of Saxony, who acquired it permanently in 1563.
The castle suffered further destruction during the Thirty Years’ War, the European conflict of 1618 to 1648 that combined religious, dynastic, and territorial struggles. Field Marshal Holk captured Plauen in 1632. Although the town surrendered, it was plundered. General Gallas arrived on 12 September, Wallenstein and the main army followed on 12 October, and the town was set on fire after their departure. Another fire in 1648 almost completely destroyed the castle.
Rebuilding and later uses
After Elector Johann Georg I died in 1656, his son Duke Moritz of Saxony-Zeitz received Plauen and parts of the Vogtland. He ordered the castle to be rebuilt from 1670 to 1675 as a secondary residence. The rebuilt complex incorporated earlier structures and included a new Querhaus, a crosswise wing dividing the site into the northwestern Upper Castle Courtyard and the southeastern Lower Castle Courtyard. The Querhaus was inaugurated in 1675.
After the Saxony-Zeitz line became extinct in 1718, the complex again served as an administrative and judicial centre. Its buildings were adapted for labour, residential, and economic purposes. From 1852, the castle was used as a prison. Air raids in April 1945 severely damaged the complex and large parts of Plauen’s old town. The surviving prison wings continued as a correctional institution after the war until 2007, and the wings and high prison wall were demolished in 2013.
Archaeological excavation began after the prison wings were removed in March 2014. The work clarified the original layout of the hilltop castle, while the results became the subject of a doctoral project at the Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, funded by the state of Saxony and supervised by the Saxon State Office for Archaeology. Since 2014, conservation and redevelopment have continued across the site. The retaining wall along the slope was provisionally stabilised, the outer defensive area between the fortifications was partly excavated, and initial concepts were prepared for reconstructing the Querhaus ruin.
Remains
The castle occupied a spur above Plauen and was enclosed by a partly surviving wall circuit that originally formed a triangular plan. The Red Tower stood at the southern point, the North Tower at the northern point, and the now-vanished White Tower at the eastern point. A filled ditch crossed the neck of the spur in front of the North Tower, separating the stronghold from the adjoining plateau. Excavation has clarified parts of the layout, although later construction and the removal of ground in the southern area have made the earliest building phases difficult to reconstruct.
Towers and outer defenses
Red Tower
The Red Tower is a prominent fourteen-sided tower overlooking the town and the bridge over the White Elster. It does not belong to the earliest construction phase. Its timber has been dated to around 1425, placing the surviving structure within the period when Heinrich X was fighting the Hussites. The tower survived the destruction of most of the complex in 1945.
North Tower
The square North Tower also survives and stands at the northern point of the former enclosure. The filled ditch in front of it cut across the spur and formed a major defense on the landward side. Like the Red Tower, the North Tower belongs to a later phase than the castle’s original thirteenth-century construction.
Outer wall and early fortified buildings
Sections of the enclosing wall remain around the former triangular circuit. Between the North Tower and the ditch were foundations of a fortified house, a defensible residential building probably dating from the thirteenth century. Along the western slope toward the Red Tower, excavation exposed the foundations of five cellars, a later residential tower probably dating from the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and a lime kiln from the same period.
Courtyards, water supply, and major buildings
Well and Querhaus
A well more than 21 metres deep was uncovered during excavation. The later Querhaus was built across the open well shaft on an arch, allowing access to the water through windows. Cellars survive beneath the building, including a tunnel cut through the rock to the well. The Querhaus appears to have begun as a Renaissance design, possibly in the sixteenth century, and to have been completed after an uncertain interval as an early Baroque building. Moritz Richter the Younger is a possible architect.
The Querhaus divided the rebuilt castle into Upper and Lower Castle Courtyards. Its south facade survives almost to the eaves, while only part of the arcade remains on the north facade. The outer walls survived the 1945 air raids, although nearly all of the complex’s other buildings were destroyed. Initial plans propose reconstruction of the ruin while retaining historic fabric wherever possible.
West Wing
After the Hussite destruction, a large representative West Wing was erected in the northwestern part of the complex. It incorporated the two original fortified houses and measured at least 42 metres in length and 10 metres in width. Its side facing the town had cross-gables of differing heights, with each gable projecting across the main roofline. An illustration made by Wilhelm Dilich between 1626 and 1629 shows the complex without roofs. Parts of the West Wing were replaced by a new building in the nineteenth century.
Granary and service buildings
Fifteenth-century records describe a large residential building containing several chambers, including a princely chamber, court chamber, women’s chamber, children’s chamber, small chamber, and bathing chamber. The same records list a church, gun house, brewery, bakery, kitchen, horse stables, sheep house, henhouse, piped-water supply, fish tank, and granary. The granary was substantially enlarged around 1500. It was about 40 metres long and had at least three storeys.
Archaeological evidence and later alteration
The medieval buildings were removed during later construction, and the southern ground layers were stripped away, probably to create a level courtyard during the rebuilding of the 1670s. This alteration disturbed earlier remains. Excavation also disproved an earlier interpretation that placed a ditch in front of the Querhaus and a keep in the Upper Castle Courtyard. The original position of the inner castle therefore remains uncertain, and the landward location of that courtyard argues against identifying it as the inner castle.
The surviving remains now include the Red Tower, North Tower, sections of the enclosing wall, parts of the Querhaus, and archaeological foundations and excavated installations. Together, these elements preserve evidence for the castle’s changing form from a medieval hilltop stronghold to a residence, administrative centre, prison, and heavily altered archaeological site.
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