Wollershausen Castle

In the year 1398, Duke Friedrich von Grubenhagen thanked Knight Hans von Minnigerode for successfully safeguarding the ducal interests in an inheritance feud with a fiefdom in Wollershausen. For a long time, the Lords of Minnigerode administered and managed the village from their seat, Allerburg Castle near Bockelnhagen (13 km southeast of Wollershausen, destroyed in the Peasants' War in 1525). When they stayed in Wollershausen, they probably used the manor house built in the early 13th century by the Knights of Woldershusen. However, this noble court, located in the Rhume lowlands, later burned down.

Johann von Minnigerode (1556–1611), who became the sole owner of the entire knight's estate in 1601, was the first lord of the manor to live permanently in Wollershausen. In 1603, he had a new stately manor house built. It was surrounded by a wide moat, over which a drawbridge led to the castle. The upper floor, in contrast to the stone ground floor, was built in half-timbered style and had three bay windows with onion domes in the south wing.

The aforementioned Johann von Minnigerode married Dorothea von Hanstein on July 16, 1604, who brought a considerable fortune into the marriage and was thus able to actively support her husband's building projects. Johann had St. Marien Church rebuilt and the rectory built in 1605. The Wollershausen church also owes some of its most beautiful treasures to the generous lady.

After Johann died in 1611, his wife Dorothea and their three children inhabited the manor until 1627. Then they fled to Osterode from the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War. Wollershausen suffered more than other places in the area from the war. Catholic forces (invading raiders and peasants from the neighboring Eichsfeld) had taken possession of the village, especially in the last weeks of the fighting, stolen cattle and other goods, and extorted, shot, or mercilessly tortured the Protestant inhabitants. Finally, the village, partly reduced to rubble and ashes, stood empty, and agriculture and livestock farming lay dormant. In the following years, with the support of the Osterode government, the reconstruction of the severely damaged village began. In 1647, after the death of his mother Dorothea and his siblings, Hans von Minnigerode returned to the village as the heir of the Wollershausen estate and, after another absence of several years, initiated a phase of reconstruction from 1666. When Hans von Minnigerode died in 1676 and his son Georg Friedrich (1650–1677) followed him in 1677 at the age of only 27, the direct line of succession of the family died out after almost 300 years of continuity.

After a lengthy inheritance process (21 years), Ludwig von Minnigerode (1685–1748), a great-grandson of Johann von Minnigerode's brother (Hans Caspar von Minnigerode 1560–1602), acquired the Wollershausen estates through a settlement with the opposing party (the von Schlitz genannt von Görtz family).

In the meantime, the castle seems to have fallen into severe disrepair, so the new owner had the old knight's seat, which was located at the height of today's main street, demolished. A little further south, Ludwig von Minnigerode built the current moated castle in marshy terrain between 1732 and 1735. Large wooden logs were inserted to stabilize the subsoil, which caused enormous costs for the new building.

This moated castle, in its simple beauty and elegance, survived the following centuries almost unscathed; it outlasted the departure of the Minnigerode family in 1932 and the transfer of its lands and possessions into other hands, so that it still presents itself today in its original imposing effect.

After the buildings were used for years by a youth welfare institution, the castle is now largely empty and is offered for sale.