Kliczków Castle (german: Schloss Klitschdorf) is located in Kliczków in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

. It was owned by the

Solms-Baruth Solms-Baruth was a Lower Lusatian state country, from 16th century until 1945. History The House of Solms had its origins at Solms, Hesse, and ruled several of the many minor states of the Holy Roman Empire. These lost their independence in the G ...

dynasty until 1942.

History

Kliczków was founded as a border fortress at the river

Kwisa The Kwisa (german: Queis, hsb, Hwizdź) is a river in south-western Poland, a left tributary of the Bóbr, which itself is a left tributary of the Oder river. It rises in the Izera Mountains, part of the Western Sudetes range, where it runs al ...

by Duke Bolko I of

Jawor Jawor (german: Jauer) is a town in south-western Poland with 22,890 inhabitants (2019). It is situated in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship (from 1975 to 1998 it was in the former Legnica Voivodeship). It is the seat of Jawor County, and lies appr ...

in 1297. In 1391, it fell into the hands of the Rechenberg family from Saxony, who held it for almost 300 years. The main building was built in 1585 in the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

style. In 1611, King Matthias of Bohemia visited the castle. After several more changes of ownership, it came to John Christian, Count of Solms-Baruth in 1767. In 1810, the grand ballroom in Empire style was created. In 1881, the architects Heinrich Joseph Kayser and Karl von Großheim from Berlin began an expansion of the castle. They mixed styles: English Gothic architecture with Italian Renaissance and French mannerism. An 80-acre English country garden was designed at the same time by

Eduard Petzold Carl Eduard Adolph Petzold (14 January 1815 – August 1891) was a German landscape gardener. Life Petzold was born in Königswalde (Lubniewice), Brandenburg. As a child, he followed his parents in 1826 to Muskau, visiting the town's schoo ...

. In 1906, Emperor

Wilhelm II , house = Hohenzollern , father = Frederick III, German Emperor , mother = Victoria, Princess Royal , religion = Lutheranism (Prussian United) , signature = Wilhelm II, German Emperor Signature-.svg Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor ...

stayed at the castle while he was hunting in the area. In 1920, it was inherited by Frederick of Solms-Baruth. During the Nazi period, he was engaged in resistance against National Socialism in the

Kreisau Circle The Kreisau Circle (German: ''Kreisauer Kreis'', ) (1940–1944) was a group of about twenty-five German dissidents in Nazi Germany led by Helmuth James von Moltke, who met at his estate in the rural town of Kreisau, Silesia. The circle was com ...

. He was arrested after the failed attempt on Hitler's life and his property was confiscated. The castle survived the Second World War virtually unscathed, but the interior was looted by Soviet troops. In 1949, a fire destroyed the depot and the servants' quarters. In the 1950s, the castle was in the care of the local forest authority, which neglected the interior and ruined the stucco and the stoves. The former owner's horse cemetery was retained. In 1971, the

Wrocław University of Technology Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...

acquired the castle and tried in vain to save it. After the fall of Communism, a commercial company from

Wrocław Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...

purchased the castle and developed it into a luxurious conference and recreation center that was opened in 1999.

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kliczkow Castle History of Silesia Castles in Lower Silesian Voivodeship Bolesławiec County Tourist attractions in Lower Silesian Voivodeship

History

See also

Footnotes