Tag: castles

livesunique:

Schloss Moyland, Bedburg-Hau, District of Kleve, North Rhine-Westphalia

thatswhywelovegermany:

Castle of Plön, Schleswig-Holstein

In 1173, a first castle was built at the site of today’s Plön Castle as a replacement for an older complex located on an island in the lake of Plön. That castle was replaced by today’s palace from 1632 on and completed in pnly three years, in spite of the raging thirty-year-war. When the the last duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön died without an heir, the fiefdom fell back to the Danish crown and became the summer residence of the Danish kings.

After the Second Schleswig War

the castle became a property of the Prussian state in 1864. They converted the castle into barracks and a cadet training center.

The Treaty of Versaille prohibited Germany from having military training centers, thus, the castle was used as a boarding school. During the Nazi dictatorship, it was one of the Napola elite schools for future Nazi leaders. At the end of World War II., the castle served briefly as the headquarters of the last government of the Third Reich under Karl Dönitz.

Immediately after the war, the British Army took their headquarters there. But as early as 1946, the castle became a public boarding school again. Neglected maintenance led to increasing deterioration of the entire complex. By the mid-1980s, it was clear that the multi-million D-Mark rehabilitation of the building was impossible to finance, and the operation of the boarding school became increasingly loss-making.

In 1992, it was decided to close the boarding school and to sell the property to an investor. However, it was not until 2002 before the state of Schleswig-Holstein found a credible investor with a sustainable utilization concept: the biggest German optician chain, who installed an academy for aspiring opticians. You can obtain a Bachelor of Science in optometry there. It took them four years to redevelop the castle. They also restored some of the royal rooms for public access in guided tours. Some of the lecture halls and conference rooms can be rented and are used as concert halls for classical concerts.