Castle Przegorzały: A Second World War Residence and Nazi-Era Complex in Kraków
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.1
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Poland
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- German
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page9 sections
History
Castle Przegorzały is a Second World War residential castle in Kraków, Poland, built during the German occupation in the Nazi architectural style and regarded as one of the few examples of Third Reich architecture in the city. The project was initiated by Otto Wächter, the Austrian Nazi official who governed the Kraków District and later became governor of the Galicia District.
Conception and forced design
Wächter intended the castle to serve as a summer residence after he failed to acquire the nearby Villa Baszta, the home of the Polish architect and architectural scholar Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz. A proposed exchange or lease did not persuade Szyszko-Bohusz. On 19 December 1940, he was arrested on fabricated charges, and Villa Baszta was seized. He was later compelled to prepare and sign the designs for the new castle.
Szyszko-Bohusz worked with the Austrian architects Richard Pfob and Hans Petermair. Two designs were prepared. The first proposed a lower building that would preserve the visual dominance of Villa Baszta, while the second established the form that survives today. Work probably began in the first half of 1941, and the design carries the date 1 October 1941. The building was named Schloss Wartenberg, meaning “Wartenberg Castle.”
Wartime construction and changing plans
Construction began in 1942, but the project was interrupted after the Wächter family moved to Lviv on 1 February, when Otto Wächter assumed the governorship of the Galicia District. Work resumed on 19 November 1943, during Heinrich Himmler’s visit to Kraków. Himmler, the head of the SS, a major Nazi organization responsible for security, policing, and concentration-camp administration, saw the unfinished building presented by Hans Frank, the head of the German occupation administration known as the General Government.
The SS intended to use the castle as a sanatorium for its personnel. A cable-car connection to the road about 100 metres below the building was planned but never built. Kraków was taken by the Red Army on 18 January 1945, before the project could be completed as intended. A hospital operated in the castle near the end of the war.
Post-war institutional use
After the war, the Bohusz family made an unsuccessful attempt to recover the property. In 1952, the entire complex was occupied by the Forest Research Institute, which was subordinate to the Ministry of Forestry. From 1973, the castle housed the Jagiellonian University Institute of Polish Diaspora Studies. That institute later moved to a newly built complex nearby.
The building subsequently accommodated the Jagiellonian University Institute of European Studies and the Holocaust Research Centre. It has also operated as a hotel and restaurant. As of 30 September 2010, Castle Przegorzały was not entered in the monument register, despite efforts to obtain that status.
Remains
Castle Przegorzały stands in the Przegorzały area within the Wolski Forest landscape park. The complex follows a residential castle design modeled on the Middle Rhine castles of the Romantic period, a revival approach inspired by historic fortified and residential buildings along the Middle Rhine. Its associated structures include a gatehouse watch post and a combined garage and guard building, both constructed alongside the castle and still surviving.
Castle and landscape setting
Main castle
The main building is identified as having been constructed between 1942 and 1943, although work stopped after construction began and resumed only in November 1943. Its first-floor premises have been used for a café and restaurant. A terrace extends from the complex and provides views over south-western Kraków, the Vistula, and the Beskid mountain region, including Babia Góra and the Orava Beskids.
Villa Baszta
Castle Przegorzały stands beside Villa Baszta, a slightly earlier semicircular, tower-shaped house built in 1928 and 1929 for Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz. The villa was probably inspired by the Rotunda of Saints Felix and Adauctus, a historic rotunda church in Kraków. Its proximity formed part of the setting for the castle project and the dispute that preceded its construction.
Gatehouse and service buildings
The surviving complex also contains the gatehouse watch post and the combined garage and guard building. These structures were designed and built at the same time as the castle, providing associated functions within the residential and guarded compound.
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