Dermbach Castle

Dermbach Castle is a historic building in the municipality of Dermbach in the Wartburg district and is located in the northern part of the town. On the opposite side of the street from the courtyard is the Franciscan monastery with a representative church.

On May 25, 1707, the Fulda Prince-Abbot Adalbert von Schleifras came to Dermbach for a homage ceremony. The new, old territorial lords from Fulda Monastery began construction of Dermbach Castle. The Fulda needed the building as an official residence. Konstantin von Buttlar, who moved in there in 1717, had a massive sandstone wall with strong supports erected around the buildings and the spacious garden. The castle is a three-winged complex in Baroque style, with a wide, rectangular courtyard in the center. The interior of the main building, which until 1736 housed the chapel of the opposite Franciscan monastery and the Catholic school, contains a generous staircase and ceilings with ornamental decorations. Already in 1802, with the dissolution of the spiritual principalities dictated by Napoleon, Fulda's rule in Dermbach ended. The castle experienced four more owners in just 10 years, and from 1815 it became part of the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. After the First World War, this state no longer existed, and the state of Thuringia took over the official castle, making it the seat of the district administration in 1920, used as a forestry office, police station, and temporarily also as a youth hostel. In 1932, a "Local History Museum for the Eisenach Oberland" was established in some halls and rooms. The collections were later taken over by the Dermbach Local History Museum. The Second World War had led many refugees to the Rhön, and the castle was still used as refugee accommodation in the 1950s. In 1952, the GDR border police and later the "Florian Geyer" Border Regiment of the National People's Army of the GDR took over the building. In 1994, the municipality of Dermbach bought its castle from the Thuringian State Real Estate Administration. The municipality of Dermbach received urban development funding for the comprehensive renovation of the historic building. Since 1999, the castle has been the main building of the Dermbach municipal administration with a library, registry office, and club rooms.