Jägerhof Castle

Jägerhof Castle is located at Jacobistraße 2 in the Pempelfort district of Düsseldorf, near the city center. It was built from 1752 to 1763 on behalf of Elector Karl Theodor. At that time, the castle was still outside the city gates. The castle is the point de vue of the riding avenue of the Hofgarten and Jägerhofstraße.

A first Jägerhof is already documented in the mid-17th century. This building is said to have been located in the middle of a game park, approximately near the present castle, and served as the seat of the electoral forest administration from 1694.

With the death of Elector Jan Wellem in 1716 and the departure of his widow on September 10, 1717, Düsseldorf lost its status as a residential city. Consequently, the buildings fell into disrepair and the entire area remained unused for many decades. It was only revived in the mid-18th century by the "baroque building enthusiasm" of Karl Theodor, who, although he ruled the duchies of Jülich-Berg with their capital Düsseldorf as a secondary territory, harbored grand plans. Karl Theodor commissioned his master builder Johann Joseph Couven with the planning and implementation of a more representative Jägerhof in the style of a Rococo pleasure palace.

An initial design by Couven from 1749 envisioned a three-story building with a central tower and wings, around which the Düssel river was to be diverted. However, the chief building director Nicolas de Pigage only implemented a part of the originally planned construction measures. Thus, the building was completed in 1762 without side wings. Until 1795, it served as the seat of the chief huntsmen.

Under the leadership of the electoral governor Johann Ludwig Franz von Goltstein, the older part of the Hofgarten and the riding avenue were converted into public parks as a kind of job creation measure. This was intended to alleviate the poverty caused by several crop failures in the years 1769–1771. The Hofgärtnerhaus (court gardener's house) with a restaurant was also built in 1770.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the Jägerhof and the Hofgärtnerhaus were almost blown up by French revolutionary troops in 1795. However, it did not escape looting by the French troops that year. The Hofgarten was also heavily cleared of its timber. During this time, the Jägerhof served as a lazaret and night quarters for the French and remained in a deplorable state until Napoleon's visit in 1811. For this occasion, everything was hastily renovated and furnished so that the Emperor and his wife Marie Louise could feel comfortable during their four-day visit. An initially unrealized renovation plan by the neoclassical architect Adolf von Vagedes is known from this year. Secretary of State Count Roederer described the city of Düsseldorf, prepared for Napoleon's visit, as "petit Paris" in a letter to his wife.

In 1815, after the Congress of Vienna, the Rhineland fell to Prussia. The family of Division Commander Prince Friedrich of Prussia, who resided in Jägerhof Castle from 1821, found the premises too small, so the old plans by Johann Joseph Couven and Adolph von Vagedes were brought out again and the side wings were added under the construction management of Anton Schnitzler. In the 1850s, the family of Prince Karl Anton von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen resided in the castle until the prince became Prussian Prime Minister in 1858 and moved his residence to Berlin. Until 1885, the castle remained a Hohenzollern residence.

Since even the castle, extended with side wings, was considered too small and inappropriate as a residence for a member of the Prussian royal family, the state sold it, along with the rear garden, to the city of Düsseldorf in 1909. The sale is said to have taken place "grudgingly" because otherwise the castle would have fallen to an external interested party. The city then tried to resell the land as building land, but this failed due to protests from many Düsseldorf residents. Nevertheless, the former official residence was trimmed of its garden and side wings, and so from 1910, the Jägerhof consisted only of the central section with a small, fenced forecourt. The wing buildings were demolished because they protruded 1.7 m beyond the new building line of the widened Jacobistraße.

During the French occupation in 1925, the building was confiscated and used as the seat of the commandant's office. In 1934, the Consistory of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland moved into the building. However, the existing lease agreement was unlawfully terminated due to considerable pressure from the NSDAP Gauleiter Friedrich Karl Florian, so that the Gauleitung could be established in the building on January 30, 1937. The Gauleitung was located here until the heavy air raid on June 12, 1943, which severely damaged the castle; it then moved to the building of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court. The castle was rebuilt by Helmut Hentrich only in 1950. Some receptions of the young Federal Republic took place here.

Since 1955, Jägerhof Castle has been used as a museum. Initially by the City Museum, later by the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, which then moved to the new building on Grabbeplatz in 1986. Since 1987, the Goethe Museum, together with the Ernst Schneider Foundation, has been located in the Jägerhof and offers, in addition to the comprehensive permanent exhibition on Goethe's life and work, changing exhibitions on intellectual and literary history topics.

In the garden are the figures The Seasons, created by the Düsseldorf professor of sculpture Josef Bäumgen in 1774.