Graupa Castle

Graupa is located northwest of Pirna. As early as 1401 there was an outwork, to which in 1535 the villages of Groß- and Kleingraupa, Söbrigen and Birkwitz belonged. The landlords in the 15th century were the Karras family. In 1579, Christoph von Loss zu bought the manor house including its accessories, and almost 100 years later, everything belonged to Baron von Friesen. The hunting lodge, destroyed by lightning in 1800 and rebuilt, formed the western wing of the outwork. It subsequently belonged to the Wehlen dominion. Großgraupa and Bonnewitz belonged to Castrum Dresden in 1378, before they were assigned to the Pirna or Schönfeld district court in 1856 and subsequently to the Pirna district administration. A stay by Richard Wagner in the summer of 1846, when he wrote the music for Lohengrin here, made Graupa famous. The Raupenberg hunting lodge in Graupa is surrounded to the south and west by a pond, into which an outdoor staircase leads. The old castle, which, as mentioned, fell victim to a lightning strike in 1800, was rebuilt in the same year, but the tower was only added in 1839. Previously, the hunting lodge was the seat of the Pillnitz forest district. Currently, the building houses a school.