Rabenstein Castle

Rabenstein Castle, the smallest medieval castle in Saxony, is located in the Rabenstein district of Chemnitz and is part of the Schlossbergmuseum Chemnitz. Not far from the castle rock, on which the current castle complex stands, are Rabenstein Palace and the Oberrabenstein reservoir, which is adjoined by thestein Forest.

The hilltop castle was first mentioned in 1336 in a document by Louis the Bavarian, in which he promised it to his son-in-law, Margrave Frederick of Meissen, as an imperial fief, should the line of the Lords of Waldenburg die out without a male heir. At that time, the castle was much larger than the current complex. The castle rock was surrounded by a 180 m long ring wall, which enclosed an area of two hectares. Buildings were attached to the ring wall both externally and internally. In front of the ring wall, there was also a moat for protection.

However, the castle, of which only a part of the upper castle and the attached round tower on a 15-meter high slate rock have been preserved to this day, was built much earlier. It was initially assumed that the construction of the castle began between the 9th and 11th centuries. It is more likely that the castle was built in the 12th century, when German eastward settlement and the development of the Ore Mountains primeval forest began here.

In 1375, it was sold to the Benedictine monastery of Chemnitz, which thereby acquired the castle and the lordship of Rabenstein from the Lords of Waldenburg. This was not accepted by the Wettins, so the lordship was pledged to Burgrave Albrecht von Leisnig, which led to a ten-year feud. Only in 1396 did Margrave Wilhelm of Meissen confirm the purchase of the castle and the lordship by the Chemnitz monastery.

In 1418, further fierce disputes over the castle arose, and a fire around 1480 destroyed parts of the castle. This prompted Abbot Caspar von Meckau to rebuild the castle starting in 1483. At this time, it probably no longer had a ring wall, and only a few buildings remained on the castle grounds.

During the process of the dissolution of the Chemnitz Benedictine monastery, the castle and the lordship passed to the Saxon ruling house, the Wettins, who united the two lordships of Rabenstein and Chemnitz in 1546. Since official business was now conducted from Chemnitz, the castle remained unused and was thus left to decay.

With the purchase of the castle and the outwork by the Electoral Chief Forester (from 1626, Chief Huntsman) Hans Georg von Carlowitz in 1619, the decay process was stopped and the dilapidated castle was restored from 1620. At this time, the tower received its baroque dome (1624), and the knight's hall was decorated with wall paintings depicting animals.

The Carlowitz family had to give up the castle in 1774, so it was sold to Johann Georg Siegert from Chemnitz (the baroque facade of the Siegert house on Chemnitz market is still known today). Two years later, the manor house not far from the castle was built, which is now called Rabenstein Palace. It was intended for his daughter, the sole heiress, Rahel Amalie, who was married to the Privy Councillor Karl Wolfgang Maximilian Freiherr von Welck. After Rahel Amalie inherited it in 1783 and he was ennobled in 1785, he bought all of Oberrabenstein with the palace and castle from his wife and had the castle grounds rebuilt in the old knightly style and the park, in English style, beautified - for this purpose, the lower castle was demolished. After his death in 1809, Oberrabenstein passed to Georg Ludwig Freiherr von Welck of Oberrabenstein.

The Welck era ended with the sale of the complex in 1837 to the Leipzig merchant and homeowner William Eduard Kraft, who owned it until his death in 1878 and gladly opened it to interested visitors. Further owners followed. Thus, the Oberrabenstein manor, which also included the castle, came into the possession of the Chamberlain von Ried in 1900, who in turn sold it in 1902 to the factory owner Matthé Paul Herfurth, in whose possession the castle and the estate remained until 1945.

Under the Herfurths, work had already begun to excavate the vaults filled with rubble. From 1927, the castle was accessible to the public for a fee on weekends and holidays. Nevertheless, the castle continued to decay, so that from May 26, 1942, it was closed to visitors for safety reasons.

After the Second World War, the then still independent town of Rabenstein was incorporated into the Soviet occupation zone, so that from July 1945, the manor first fell under Soviet administration and from 1947 became the property of the state of Saxony, which transferred it to the municipality of Rabenstein in 1949. The town of Rabenstein was incorporated into Chemnitz on July 1, 1950, so the city came into possession of the castle, which it restored and reopened to the public as a museum on May 16, 1959. Further restorations took place in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, the castle is an outpost of the Schlossbergmuseum Chemnitz.