Barby Castle

The Barby territory was elevated to an Imperial County in 1497 and was owned by the Counts of Barby. After the death of the last Count of Barby in 1659, Barby fell to Duke August of Saxe-Weissenfels. His son, Duke Heinrich of Saxe-Weissenfels, had the castle built between 1687 and 1715. It was probably structurally altered several times and served as a teacher training college between 1855 and the 1920s. On March 7, 1917, it was severely damaged by a fire. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was used as a transit camp ("reception home for refugees from the Western zones"). Today it houses the Land Registry Archive of Saxony-Anhalt.