Ettersburg Castle

Ettersburg Palace and Park are located near Ettersburg in Thuringia, on the Ettersberg (474 m), an elongated ridge north of Weimar. Since 1998, they have been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the "Classical Weimar" ensemble.

Construction

Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Saxe-Weimar, who enjoyed hunting in the forests of the Ettersberg, had the palace built immediately west of the village of Ettersburg between 1706 and 1712 as a three-winged, unadorned building. In 1722, he added the three-story, so-called New Palace. His nephew and successor Ernst August had the palace rebuilt and a grand staircase added in front of it between 1728 and 1740.

After Duke Carl August's accession to the throne, the Duchess Mother Anna Amalia used the palace as her summer residence from 1776 to 1780. Her literary and musical circle met here, including Wieland, Goethe, Herder, the storyteller Johann Karl August Musäus, and the actress Corona Schröter; the Weimar amateur theater also performed here. From 1780, this summer residence shifted to Tiefurt Palace, where the manor house had been rebuilt. After that, Ettersburg Palace was only visited sporadically. Friedrich Schiller completed his work Maria Stuart there in 1800.

It was not until the 19th century that Grand Duke Carl Alexander and Grand Duchess Sophie revived the musical tradition here. In 1842, Carl Alexander married the Dutch Princess Sophie; the grand staircase at the New Palace was a wedding gift from the Dutch royal family. Ettersburg became the hereditary grand ducal summer residence and hosted renowned guests in the following years, including Hans Christian Andersen, Emanuel Geibel, Friedrich Hebbel, Franz Liszt, and others. In 1845, a park in the style of an English landscape garden was created according to plans by landscape architect Eduard Petzold and the "Park Prince" Hermann von Pückler-Muskau.

In 1918, Ettersburg Palace became the property of the State of Thuringia. From 1923, Ettersburg was a Hermann Lietz School; the "Deutsche Landerziehungsheime Dr. Hermann Lietz" foundation leased the palace for 30 years. Approximately 80 students and teachers subsequently inhabited the palace complex, among them Wernher von Braun.

From 1937, Buchenwald concentration camp was built in the vicinity. The Lietz School was initially confiscated by the SS and closed in 1945.

In the decades after World War II, Ettersburg Palace was neglected and fell into disrepair. First, it served as a training center for judicial employees and public prosecutors, and after a renovation in the 1960s and 1970s, as a retirement home. Through students, children from the village of Ettersburg, volunteers, and culturally interested people, the palace and church were saved from complete decay during the GDR era. Preservation and repair work on the collegiate church had been carried out since 1984. The nave was reconstructed between 1985 and 1988 under the most difficult conditions. Even during this construction period, the church was a meeting place for various cultural events and was under constant observation by the State Security.

Renovation

Although measures were taken to secure the building fabric of the palace, a comprehensive renovation was not possible until 2006 due to financial reasons. A support association, Kuratorium Schloss Ettersburg, founded in 1990, aimed to save the palace near Weimar, which was threatened by decay, and organized a diverse program of events using various artistic means and with reference to the location. In October 2009, the association dissolved. The cultural office LaRete has been operating a project office in the palace since 2004 and is the local contact. Exhibition panels on the history of the palace can be viewed all year round.

In 1999, a path in the park, cleared 250 years ago, was reopened. It allows access from the palace to the current memorial on the grounds of Buchenwald concentration camp. In 2003, students from the Hoffmann-von-Fallersleben-Gymnasium worked on Ettersburg as part of the "denkmal aktiv – Kulturerbe macht Schule" project of the German Foundation for Monument Protection.

In November 2005, the palace was handed over by the Klassik Stiftung Weimar to BiW Bildungswerk BAU Hessen-Thüringen e. V., a non-profit educational association, for an initial period of 55 years under a hereditary building right contract. BiW BAU aimed to establish an academy for specialists and managers in the field of construction planning and construction management in the palace.

In July 2006, the structural revitalization of the property began. To ensure a smooth construction process, the palace was closed to all other interests until January 2008. The pure structural renovation cost almost 9 million EUR and was completed at the turn of 2007/2008. The patron of the project was Thuringia's Minister President Dieter Althaus.

Since 2008, the Bauhaus Akademie Schloss Ettersburg has commenced its work; the palace complex can also be booked as a conference venue and for events. In addition, Ettersburg Palace is the seat of the "Stiftung Schloss Ettersburg – Gestaltung des demografischen Wandels" (Ettersburg Palace Foundation – Shaping Demographic Change), an initiative supported by the construction industry, which aims to attempt to influence the minimization of the negative consequences of demographic change with an interdisciplinary perspective. The chairman of the foundation is Klaus Töpfer, former Federal Minister and former head of the United Nations Environment Programme.

In 2009, the ensemble of palace and park was awarded the National Prize for Integrated Urban Development and Building Culture by the Federal Ministry of Transport.

Ettersburg Palace now also offers gastronomy and high-quality accommodation for guests (hotel). On weekends, guided tours of the palace are offered for interested visitors.