Schloss Etterzhausen: A Castle and Former Manorial Seat in Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page12 sections
History
Schloss Etterzhausen is a historic castle in Germany whose present core dates from 1590 and whose later enlargement incorporated Neoclassical forms. The settlement was first recorded on 5 October 977, when Otto II, a tenth-century Holy Roman Emperor of the Ottonian dynasty, issued a charter at the royal court of “Eidrateshusa.” He donated his estate at Ennsburg and ten royal hides at Lorch to Lorch Abbey. The name changed over the centuries, and Etterzhausen has been used exclusively since the end of the fourteenth century.
Medieval lordship
Around 1200, the Wittelsbachs acquired Urfar and, with the help of the Löwenecker family, expanded their position west of Regensburg. The Wittelsbachs were a powerful German ruling dynasty whose Bavarian and Palatinate branches controlled extensive territories and estates. Their position included control of the crossing of the Naab. The concentration of their possessions at Etterzhausen eventually formed the Hofmark of Etterzhausen, a manorial jurisdiction in which a local lord exercised administrative and limited judicial authority over an estate and its dependent settlement. During the Palatinate-Neuburg period, the Hofmark was subordinate to the Burglengenfeld district land-judge’s office.
Babo of Etterzhausen is recorded as the castle’s owner in 1261. Hugo von Löweneck held it in 1277, followed by the lords of Dachsöllern, Dietrich von Parsberg in 1314, and the von Gumprecht family. The lords of Parsberg owned it again in 1463. Hans Arnold von Zettwitz held the castle in 1585, and Hans Siegmund von Erlbeck acquired it by 1590. Von Erlbeck erected the present complex after that date.
War and rebuilding
In 1632, during the Thirty Years’ War, a major European conflict fought mainly in the German lands from 1618 to 1648, Bavarian troops destroyed the village and its bridge over the Naab. The action aimed to prevent the Swedish army, advancing from the south along the western bank of the Danube, from crossing at Etterzhausen during the expected fighting for Regensburg. The castle was later rebuilt and renovated in 1769.
The Dittmer and Zerzog estates
Baron Georg Friedrich von Dittmer acquired the two manorial districts of Pettendorf and Etterzhausen in 1799 as a knightly estate. With the purchase came representation in the territorial estates. Dittmer enlarged the castle with north and south wings in Neoclassical forms, redesigned the park, rebuilt the estate farmyard, and established a school in the building known as the Hafnerhaus.
After Dittmer died in 1811, the estate passed by inheritance to his son-in-law Karl Christian Thon, who had married Dittmer’s daughter Friederike Amalie. Thon died in 1831. Under a family agreement, the estate then passed to his eldest daughter Julie, who had married Adolf von Zerzog in 1827, bringing Etterzhausen into the Zerzog family.
Julie von Zerzog continued living in the castle with her eight children until 1844. She then returned to Regensburg, where she worked as a kindergarten teacher, supported poor married women who had recently given birth through the women’s association founded in 1844, and established and directed a sewing and knitting school for ten years.
Modern ownership and protection
The Fromm family owned Schloss Etterzhausen from 1858 until Commercial Councillor Rüdiger Fromm died in 1989. Fromm was unmarried and left the estate to the Munich Child Protection Association. Around the turn of the millennium, Regensburg tax adviser and business graduate Ernst Ippisch purchased the castle and commissioned extensive renovation.
Schloss Etterzhausen is a protected monument under file number D-3-75-175-5. Archaeological remains from the early modern period in the castle area are separately protected under file number D-3-6937-0171.
Remains
The surviving complex is an articulated, two-storey castle with a hipped roof, a central projecting entrance bay, an octagonal tower, rear cross wings, and surrounding garden features. Its principal building retains a core dating from 1590, while later additions and enclosure elements reflect subsequent changes to the estate.
Castle building
Main castle
The castle is a two-storey building with a hipped roof and a central projecting bay whose corners are rounded. The bay contains the carriage entrance. An octagonal tower rises above the building and is crowned by a cupola. At the rear, projecting cross wings carry raised open balconies. The entrance displays the marital coat of arms of the Erlbeck and Reitzenstein families, combining the heraldic arms associated with the two spouses or their families.
Garden and enclosure
Landscape garden
The landscape garden retains remnants of its garden furnishings. The grounds are enclosed by posts, a cast-iron fence, and a garden wall. Set within the wall is an inscribed stone dated 1696. The enclosure elements date from the eighteenth or nineteenth century.
Associated estate structure
Slope cellar
An associated cellar was built into the slope opposite the castle. It had been created by the eighteenth or nineteenth century at the latest and forms part of the surviving physical context of the estate.
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