Dornburg is a town in the Saale-Holzland district, in

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

, Germany. It sits atop a small hill of 400 ft above the

Saale The Saale (), also known as the Saxon Saale (german: Sächsische Saale) and Thuringian Saale (german: Thüringische Saale), is a river in Germany and a left-bank tributary of the Elbe. It is not to be confused with the smaller Fränkische Saale, ...

. Since 1 December 2008, it is part of the town

Dornburg-Camburg Dornburg-Camburg is a town in the Saale-Holzland district, in Thuringia, Germany. It was created on 1 December 2008, when the towns Dornburg and Camburg and the municipality Dorndorf-Steudnitz were merged. History Within the German Empire (1871 ...

History

Within the

German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

(1871–1918), Dornburg was part of the

Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (german: Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach) was a historical German state, created as a duchy in 1809 by the merger of the Ernestine duchies of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach, which had been in personal union since 1741. It was raised ...

Main sights

Dornburg is mainly known for its three grand ducal castles, once belonging to the former grand-dukes of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. These are: *''Altes Schloss'', which is built on the site of older castles from the early 12th century. One such castle was the Kaiserpfalz, often a residence of the emperors

Otto II Otto II (955 – 7 December 983), called the Red (''der Rote''), was Holy Roman Emperor from 973 until his death in 983. A member of the Ottonian dynasty, Otto II was the youngest and sole surviving son of Otto the Great and Adelaide of Italy. ...

and

Otto III Otto III (June/July 980 – 23 January 1002) was Holy Roman Emperor from 996 until his death in 1002. A member of the Ottonian dynasty, Otto III was the only son of the Emperor Otto II and his wife Theophanu. Otto III was crowned as King of ...

, and where the emperor Henry II held a diet in 1005. *''Neues Schloss'' or "Rokokoschloss", built in the Italian style in the years 1728–1748. It features pretty gardens that drew the likes of

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...

. *The third and southernmost of the three is the so-called ''Renaissanceschloss'', which was built in the 17th century on the site of an older castle.

References

External links

A German site with statistics
Geography of Thuringia Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach {{SaaleHolzland-geo-stub