Pinnewitz Castle

General Bernhard von Beust acquired Pinnewitz, with the manor house and the outwork Kreißa and Schrebitz, where he had jurisdiction, from the von der Pforte family after the war against the Turks (1697), where he participated in the siege of Vienna. In Pinnewitz there was a court room and a detention cell where thieving persons were held.

Von Beust (*1651 – 1714) wanted to make Pinnewitz a majorat, and if the male line died out, it should also be inherited by the daughter as a family fideicommissum. He also wanted to build a castle in the style of Graupzig. The Lindenplatz (lime tree square) was already there, and a large pond adjoined it, which later became Teichwiese (pond meadow). The Lindenplatz was on an island. Near the mill and the distillery, the pond narrowed, but one could sail around everything in a punt. The castle was to have the lime trees on one side and then a view of the pond, which was bordered by trees. The manor house at that time was in front of the gate entrance to the courtyard. It was the foundation of the later vegetable garden, where remnants of the old house walls still exist. Down by the pond in the lime trees, the very solidly built foundation walls of the new castle are still present. The old Beust had created a very comfortable home for himself in the old manor house. General von Beust died much too early, and his plans for Pinnewitz remained unfulfilled.

Then came the Napoleonic era when Gottlob Friedrich was just coming of age. He had to make a decision and went to Austria. He did not want to join Saxony with Napoleon, the French Emperor, but by no means with Prussia either. He could not forget the horrors of the Seven Years' War (1756 - 1763) in our region. He said at the time: "I would rather become an Austrian corporal than a Saxon general." In Austria, he joined the Hungarian Hussar Regiment and then became personal adjutant to Archduke Ferdinand d'Este, with whom he participated in the campaign to Russia against Napoleon.

When his aunt, Mrs. von Schwarzbach, died, he and his sister, Mrs. von Döring, inherited the estate. It was not until 1819 that he returned to Saxony. He found everything devastated and an empty house. The wars and unrest had lasted for years. He brought his servant and two good horses with him. Now he had to rebuild everything from scratch and set about it with great courage and skill, achieving astonishing things. He also visited the neighbors on the estates and often came to Ilkendorf, which at that time still belonged to the von Schwerdtner family. There he also met the beautiful Kamilla von Bülow and married her in 1821.

When he reported this to his Archduke, the latter wrote with congratulations, saying that he wanted to be godfather to the first son and would secure him a place in the Theresianum in Vienna. Initially, four daughters were born, and the fifth child was then the eagerly awaited son "Ferdinand". Now the family happiness was complete, and Gottlob Friedrich lived only for his family and for Pinnewitz. This happy family life was abruptly destroyed by the early death of his wife. A short time before, she had sat at the place of the later crypt and said to her husband: "Here, in this place, I would like to rest one day, with a view of the house and the lime trees." Gottlob Friedrich had loved his wife above all else and had sworn fidelity, and so he fulfilled her wish after receiving permission from Dresden to erect the crypt. The place had to be bricked up, and she had to have an extra coffin. Ferdinand was now his whole happiness, being very gifted. The father was absorbed in caring for his darling.

When the daughters were old enough, he sent them to Kleinwelka to the boarding school of the Moravian Church. It was a long journey by carriage, as there was no railway yet. They received a strict religious education there, as their father wished.

When Ferdinand was seven years old, his father himself took him to Niesky in Upper Lusatia, where the Moravian Church had a very good boarding school for boys. Ferdinand was the joy of his teachers, very gifted and fresh and free in his interactions. Later he was to go to the Theresianum in Vienna. The father was ready for any sacrifice for his son, whatever he recognized as being for his son's best. During a scarlet fever epidemic, Ferdinand also fell ill, and his father nursed him there. Ferdinand was already on the road to recovery when he suffered a relapse and could no longer be saved. So the poor father had to make the return journey to Pinnewitz with his dead son.

Gottlob Friedrich Edler von Sternstein took care of Pinnewitz to the best of his abilities. He built the long stable building and improved the old barn. Along the later vegetable garden wall, an old underground passage continued under the now filled-in mill ditch to Altzella. Gottlob Friedrich once went down a bit with the workers. They did not get far because the passage was then filled in. The mill ditch is said to have occasionally collapsed and then flooded the meadow.

Friedrich August then sold his share of the estate for life to his sister von Schwarzbach and moved to Wildschütz. The Schwarzbachs had no children. Around the turn of the century (1800), there were severe peasant unrest in the Meißen-Lommatzsch area. Inspired by the French Revolution, they no longer wanted to pay the usual dues to the manor, and indeed preferred to drive them away. The Schwarzbachs requested military assistance from Dresden, and a Colonel von Larisch, later a General, arrived with a garrison and protected the estate.

With his wife, a born von Holtzendorf, he had 2 daughters and one son. The son was to become the majorat lord; the two daughters married away, one to Silesia, the other to Leipzig. The son Friedrich Christian married a Fräulein von Pöllnitz, who was said to have been a particularly kind and charitable person. They had a son, but he died young (1718), and so his daughter inherited the estate, which now became a fideicommissum according to the old Beust's provisions.

After Friedrich Christian von Beust's death, his daughter Charlotte (*1718 – 1754) inherited the estate in 1735. She married Ladislaus Edler von Sternstein and had several children: Friedrich August and Otto, and two daughters. One was the later Mrs. von Schwarzbach, and the other disappeared during the Seven Years' War. It was said that she was a good rider and had joined General von Seidlitz in the war and later disappeared. At the time of the war against Prussia, Frederick the Great occupied the entire area, and his General von Seidlitz took up quarters in Heynitz for a longer period. The troops plundered the country and oppressed the peasants, leading to great hatred of Prussia. Otto Edler von Sternstein also bought Wildschütz near Weißenfels, but then died unmarried. Friedrich August gambled away parts of Kreißa and won a good meadow from Heynitz, and so everything went back and forth.
Friedrich August Edler von Sternstein (*1742) had two children after his marriage in 1768 to Charlotte von Weyrach. Only Gottlob Friedrich Sigismund Edler von Sternstein (*1783 – 1851) is known.
As Gottlob Friedrich grew older and felt his end approaching, he discussed everything with Marie about what she should do if he died. So, at the end, she sat by his bed for hours, holding his hand. It was very difficult for her, and she did everything as he had told her.

After the year of mourning, she sought social gatherings in Dresden and there met the twins Castor and Pollux Freiherr von Kochtitzky, marrying Pollux in 1852. The wedding took place in the Dresden Hofkirche, a Catholic church. Initially, they moved to Chemnitz, where Pollux was a captain. However, Marie was always homesick for Pinnewitz. She hoped that her husband would one day manage Pinnewitz, which is why she bought Thiele's small farm. But he had no inclination for it, and so he returned to his regiment. Clara Freiin von Kochtitzky, the first child, was born in Chemnitz. Pollux was transferred to Schneeberg in the Ore Mountains. Here he died very soon of dysentery.

Katharina Freiin von Kochtitzky was born in Pinnewitz in 1854, where Marie retreated with her two daughters. Uncle Castor became their guardian. According to their father's wish, they went to the Josephinestift in Dresden early on. When the war came in 1866, Marie worried about her little daughters and drove to Dresden by carriage against the will of the tenant. But even at the checkpoints of the Prussian occupation, she was allowed through and could ascertain the well-being of her daughters in the convent and leave them there, although the courtyard was swarming with Prussian soldiers. The normal life of the convent continued, and the daughters remained there until they were 18. The mother was happy to have her daughters back, and now they could maintain contact with the neighbors.
In the autumn of 1872, a fire broke out in the old house. Marie had the manor house restored as a solid building. Later, around the turn of the century, the side wings and the tower were added.
After the fire of 1872, Marie Freifrau von Kochtitzky lived entirely in Pinnewitz. Her sister Clara married an Austrian count and lived in Vienna. In 1874, Marie traveled to Leipzig with her daughter Katharina. On the train, they met a young Swiss man who had lived with the Castors for a time to properly learn the German language. He was Katharina's future husband - Heinrich-Franz d'Ivernois. He was Protestant, and so an evangelical wedding took place in 1875, which the mother was not at all happy about. The marriage was not happy.
First they lived in Bavaria, then in Finsterwalde, where Wörth was born in 1876, the day of the Battle of Wörth. Later they lived in Eilenburg, where Dora was born in 1877. Hubert was then born in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe in 1878. A separation soon followed, and the children were raised in Pinnewitz, where they experienced a very beautiful childhood with their grandmother. Heinrich Franz d'Ivernois died in 1884 from an operation.

When Wörth had to go to secondary school, his mother moved with the three children to Dresden and was also greatly supported here by her mother with food from Pinnewitz, and she tried to earn some money by giving painting lessons. Dora initially spent a year as an external student at the Josephinenstift, later as a full internal student, where she also lived for a long time afterwards. Katharina d'Ivernois married Georg von Walther-Jeschki in 1889 in her second marriage. He was a Rittmeister (cavalry captain) with the 18th Hussars in Großenhain. He owned the manor Pietschwitz near Bautzen. The children were now mostly there during the holidays, where their grandmother also liked to visit them. In 1889, Rüdiger was born, who died as a child in a bicycle accident. Two years later, Moritz was born, who fell in Russia on October 1, 1941. He was unmarried. Thus, the families von Sternstein, Kochtitzky, and Walther-Jeschki died out. Father Jeschki retired from the military in 1894 and went to Pietschwitz. Through his stepfather, Wörth also developed a fondness for the Hussars, as he was a great horse lover, and initially became a professional officer.

Hubert joined the Freiberg Jägers, where his grandfather Kochtitzky was born. He had never been a "good German," so he deserted from the Freibergers and then, before the First World War, had to serve half a year as a prisoner on Königstein upon his first entry into Germany. During this time, he was able to research family history and wrote his "Königsteinbuch" (family history). He was a private scholar and also a co-owner of Pinnewitz. In 1925, he married the wealthy Englishwoman Margaret Black in London. Unfortunately, he had no children. Initially, the couple lived in Locarno, Switzerland, later in England in Painswick (Gloucestershire). Hubert retained his Swiss citizenship throughout his life. He was very much involved with astrology. During the war of 1939-1945, communication was not possible, but after the war, he greatly helped his siblings Wörth and Dora with packages. After his wife's death in 1952, Hubert died in 1958 in a nursing home in Gloucester.

After the First World War, Wörth von Ivernois retired from the military as a major, learned agriculture at the age of 50, and took over Pinnewitz in 1926, which had been leased for several years. Pinnewitz is located in the Lommatzscher Pflege with very good soil. In 1926, he married Luise Freiin von dem Bussche Streithorst. Three children resulted from this marriage: Bernhard, born 1927, died 1995; Marie Luise, born 1929, nurse and pediatric nurse, unmarried; Franz, born 1930, agricultural engineer, married to Marie-Luise Keiling, born 1943, high school teacher, who lives in Branke on the Lower Weser. From this marriage came the sons Georg, born 1967, mechanical engineer (hitherto unmarried), and Martin, born 1969, graduate economist, married to Anke Pelle, born 1971, graduate commercial teacher, with sons Johannes, born 1999, and Julius, born 2001.

The Pinnewitz manor in the Meißen district had 116 hectares. As the Russians approached on April 29, 1945, the family, along with several families from the village, trekked to Königshain. A large Silesian convoy, which was on the farm, trekked along.

After a relative calm from Russian quartering in May and the Americans had withdrawn, the parents decided to return to Pinnewitz. In autumn, news of expropriations became more frequent, and so on October 18, 1945, Pinnewitz was also expropriated by the German Communists, and we had to leave Pinnewitz within an hour. It was supposed to be supervised what we packed, but that was no longer necessary, as everything was already packed. The evening before, people from the village had warned us and brought things to safety in the village under cover of darkness. During the expropriation, Father asked if, considering his advanced age (69 years) and hearing impairment, he could not be granted an apartment nearby. The answer was: "No, it is a grace that you are told where to go, towards Mecklenburg. You can be granted a handcart for your luggage." Previously, it had been said that we could only take what we could carry. So, in the afternoon, we walked to Nossen with a handcart and the large hunting dog. When friendly farm residents wanted to help us - a mother of many children - she was told that she could just as well come along. In Nossen, we spent a few more days, and when it was said that we might possibly be able to stay, Hiese went back to the mayor, who could not advise us to do so. It would have been too dangerous for the parents, as many former estate owners had already been taken to camps. From Nossen, we drove to a friend of our father's near Eilsleben, where we also met other relatives. In good weather, we then crossed the border at night near Helmstedt in the last days of October to reach Mother's sister near Göttingen.

Father's sister Dora was expropriated with us. She wanted to go to Southern Germany, as after losing her home, she only wanted to live for her Catholic Church. So, after a strenuous journey, she came to the monastery in Eichstätt, where she had an acquaintance. She died there in 1960.

Since November 4, 1945, our life in West Germany began in Olenhusen near Göttingen.
The Pinnewitz manor house was built as a two-family house, and so, to this day, self-contained apartments have been created on all three floors, some of which are still inhabited today. The land was divided into settlements of five hectares, and the livestock was also distributed to settlers, who had to pay strict taxes. We were not allowed to write to the individual people we knew with our sender address, so as not to endanger them, so we used names like Götz, Bussche, Rothig, etc., also with other places, for our sender addresses.

Franz and Hiese (Marie Luise) left as teenagers and returned to Pinnewitz for the first time as pensioners, where many of the old connections still exist. We are gratefully amazed at how the attachment and friendliness towards our parents still resonated with us after 50 years. Father died at the age of 92 here in Göttingen, where we had lived continuously since 1960, and Mother died in 1987 at almost 91 years old in a nursing home in Kassel. Hiese had brought her there to have her closer.

"The von Ivernois Family and Pinnewitz" Marie Luise and Franz von Ivernois (March 24, 2003)