The history of Burgellern Castle

How the sofa came to Burgellern

On 29 June 2005, a dream became reality: the former cathedral chapter castle awoke from its slumber and was transformed into a hotel with a restaurant, banqueting hall, conference rooms and beer garden.

In 1726, the nephew of the prince bishop of Bamberg, Marquard Wilhelm Graf von Schönborn, provost of the cathedrals of Bamberg and Eichstätt, stayed in Burgellern for a longer period of time in order to advance the conversion of the old castle into a summer residence. The main building of the castle was completed in 1726-58, the bailiwick in 1772. In November 1802, as a result of secularisation, the cathedral chapter property in Burgellern passed into electoral Bavarian ownership. In a deed dated 24 May 1819, the state administration sold the "Aerarialgut zu Burgellern" to the court factor Seilmann Samuel Heßlein of Bamberg for 38,025 gulden. In the same year, Heßlein sold to the Bamberg-based Lieutenant General Leopold Freiherr von Buseck, a brother of the last Bamberg prince bishop who was deprived of his sovereignty in 1802. The castle was occupied by his sons Karl Theodor (lithographer and painter) and Fritz, who died unmarried in 1860 and 1866.

During this time of Buseck's possession the castle was considerably rebuilt. The baroque renaissance chateau was redesigned at the beginning of the 19th century. The high, baroque mansard roof had to give way to another upper floor. The Buseck brothers lived out their love of the Orient in the furnishings and had sumptuous Oriental ceiling and wall paintings added. They brought part of the furniture with them from their trip to the Orient with Duke Max in 1834. At the same time, they created a landscape park in the English style. In 1853 the Busecks were visited by King Maximilian II, who was a friend of their family. His son and future King Ludwig II played in the castle park at the age of 8.

After the death of the Buseck brothers, the inheritance went to the son of their married sister Caroline von Thünefeld, née von Buseck. This Rudolf von Thünefeld, a baby at the time of the inheritance, moved to Burgellern in the eighties of the 19th century, lived quietly, built a water pipe and the "Wasserschloss", a romantically designed turbine house in the park. He died unmarried on 12.04.1906. The inheritance passed in a somewhat convoluted succession to a related von Bodeck family, who, however, were unable to keep the indebted estate. It was offered for sale piecemeal by estate agents. In 1908, Gottlieb Hertschik, an Austrian lieutenant from Altbunzlau in Bohemia who had served in the Egyptian army, bought the estate for 100,000 gold marks. The disadvantage of this purchase was probably that not enough agricultural land was also bought, so that in times of monetary devaluation there was no longer a sufficient basis for existence. After the inflation of 1923, the castle soon became the property of the Bavarian state.

[product id="2541″] In 1936, the latter set up a maternity home on behalf of the National Socialist People's Welfare Organisation (NSV) and built a low annex to the castle. During the Second World War, an outstation of the Bamberg State Women's Clinic was housed there. More than 1500 Bambergers saw the light of day here in 1944/45.

In 1948, the castle premises were rented by the lung specialist Dr. Schicht, who maintained a lung sanatorium, but was pestered by too many health authorities. After years of vacancy, the Morija Mission moved in in 1978 to set up a retirement home, but moved out again in the first few months of 1982. The Topf couple recently ran a Christian family and conference centre in the castle.
Since approx. 1994 the castle Burgellern stood again empty and decayed noticeably. In its original version, the park is only recognizable with a lot of imagination.

In June 2005, the castle was acquired by the Kastner family from Bayreuth and has since been converted into a hotel and catering business.