With more than 25,000 castles, Germany is an unmissable destination for those who admire these beautiful buildings and medieval history. But in order for this historical and cultural heritage to be preserved, Deutsche Burgenvereinigung – DBV (German Association of Castles, in Portuguese) does a Herculean job, cataloging castles and ruins across Germany.

Our interview is with Mr. Wagner, director of the association and resident of a medieval castle, Marksburg. With great pride, we are members of the association and we bring this interview to you.

What is the German Castles Association (Deutsche Burgenvereinigung) and what is its purpose?

The association is an initiative to protect historic heritage, so that cultural heritage doesn’t be destroyed or demolished. It was founded in 1899 by a Berlin architect who took care of protecting historic heritage by restoring castles. At this time (XIX century), he saw that many castles were built in the French or English style, but didn’t correspond to a truly German style. For this reason, he founded this association for the conservation of castles, so that the restoration or reconstruction work was done correctly.

There is a certain misunderstanding with the DBV name. We are an association of people, not a network of which castles are a part.

That was the time of Romanticism, when the desire was to bring back medieval elements, from medieval castles, correct?

Yes, yes, that’s why, many castles here in the Rhine valley were rebuilt by people who could afford it, most noble or industrial because building a castle costs a lot of money. And they delegated to an architect that he should build a castle, and for the most part, they had little to do with a medieval castle. The best example is here near Koblenz, in the Stolzenfels palace, which was rebuilt by a famous Prussian architect who worked hard in Berlin and Brandenburg.

Here, he made a palace in the neo-Gothic style. There is also a world-famous example, the Neuschwanstein, which is not a real castle, but an invention, built according to the model of a medieval castle, the castle of Wartburg, being overlaid by Romanticism. It is purely a sumptuous romantic construction.

This point is important, as there is confusion with the terms palace and castle. For example, in Portuguese, or in English, we use castelo (Portuguese) or castle for all these constructions.

Regarding the terms, I can say that in Germany, we must differentiate. The definition of Burg (castle), as the fortified residence of a nobleman, means a house, with a wall around it, for the protection of the lord of this region, either from his enemies or from his subjects. This is a Burg (castle). With the advent of firearms, those castles were no longer useful because a cannon shot could destroy that wall. At this point, this residence is divided into residential units and military units.

Thus, from Burg, where the defense and the residence were joint, the Schloss (palace) developed while the aspect of the fortified defense was in the Festung (fortress), in which only the soldiers lived and not the landlords. It was built solely for military purposes, to also withstand cannon fire. So this is the difference between palace and castle, of which the fortress is also part of these terms, from the year 1500, approximately.

How many castles are there in Germany?

In our Association there is the European Institute of Castles and one of its research scopes is to investigate how many castles there are or were in Germany. We are still working on it, but we already know that there are probably more than twenty-five thousand. It will be a while before everyone is discovered. We are working on a federal state at a time. At the moment, we have already collected data from Niedersachsen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Nordrhein-Westfalen, and Saarland and we have found that in each of these states there were at least 1,000 to 2,000 castles. On the EBI website, you can find out about these castles that we already have on file.

Does that list include only entire castles or ruins?

In this list, there are any castles that existed before 1500. It is the year we use as a limit, otherwise, the palaces should also be counted and it is something that we don’t want yet. There is much, much more for the next few years, in these 25 thousand. There are all the castles that we know of, not only those that have a roof, but also those that are in ruins in the forests, or even some that don’t even exist anymore, but are from the period before 1500 and that appear in some message or certificate of the Middle Ages. The palaces are not in this survey, only the medieval castles, which were our first target. Three years from now, when we are finished, the palaces will begin to be cataloged.

Who owns the castles today? Why are some castles open to visitors and others not? Do castles belong to the state, or to the nobility?

A great part of the castles still belong to the noble families, it was their ancestors who built them. Are many. Others currently belong to the state, either to the federal states or to the municipalities, such as the famous Rheinfels ruins here on the Rhine, which belongs to the city of St. Goar, which acquired them from Prussia. Over time, castles were sold as their owners could no longer maintain them. 

In the Middle Ages, however, it was different. It was a matter of dominating regions, whether he was a lord or needed protection, but today this is no longer the case. Today, castles function as residences, some are equipped as hostels, so there is a use, a function for these castles, because if they are used, they will not perish, they will not become ruins. Many owners sell tickets to visit their castles, make a museum, as in Wartburg or Neuschwanstein, and so the owner earns money to maintain the castle.

How is life in a castle? Is it possible to buy a palace or a castle?

It varies a lot. If a castle is privately owned, and its historical part is still preserved, it is clear that there will be problems with water supply, communication, electricity, etc. I have lived here for 19 years at Marksburg Castle, which is certainly one of the highlights among castles in Germany and has been used for a long time by the administration of the German Castle Association. Here we have central heating, electricity, water supply, telephone, internet, all of these can be installed these days and certainly, if you want to use a castle today, you will need this infrastructure.

But care must be taken when dealing with this. In Marksburg, the historic rooms are still in their original state, being exposed as a castle museum. The rooms in which I live are in the XIII century Romanesque palace, but on a floor that was built above, already in 1608, that is, a very new part of the castle.

And in the part where you live, was everything equipped for a renovation, shall we say?

In this room in which I live, imagine an old apartment, still with the beamed ceiling, but other than that, nothing much, that is, without a fireplace, or some typical castle decoration. The original rooms, like a castle, we show them to tourists. Every year, we receive more than 180 thousand visitors in Marksburg and here, people can have an image of what a castle was like in the Low Middle Ages.

Which castles do you consider unmissable for travelers?

Of course, there are many, many that are incredible, but for me, some are impressive, like the Eltz castle in the Mosel valley, the Kriebstein castle in Saxony, the Ronnneburg in Hessen, the Meersburg in the Bodensee (Lake Constance), the Wartburg castle in Thuringia, the Vischering castle in Nordrhein-Westfalen, the Burghausen Castle in Bavaria, which is the most extensive castle in the world, over 1 km long and, of course, the Marksburg. I didn’t specifically choose any romantic castle, but those that are still more or less in their medieval state and that were not considerably remodeled in the 19th century.

Much is said about the torture chambers in the castles. However, people are often disappointed, expecting to see the torture chambers as in the movies, except that these chambers are not seen on a visit to a castle, as the prisoners were apparently kept in the towers. Was that so? Is there a castle in which you can see a dungeon, like the one in the movies?

In principle, I can say, you are right. In most castles, there was no torture chamber, because the castle was a building erected mainly in the Central Middle Ages, and at that time, torture was not allowed. In the year 1280, the Pope authorized torture only against heretics. So, now that it was allowed, it spread quickly and torture started to be used against other crimes, or also for political reasons until in the Low Middle Ages and after the Middle Ages, there were many tortures – I mean, for example, Spanish Inquisition – but this is not a phenomenon that happened in castles and, if it did, it was only in the castle where the lord of that region had his residence because he had legal standing and in court cases in the Low Middle Ages, torture played a role. Before that, you can’t talk about torture in castles.

Unfortunately, this is a cliché that people have in their mind, so when they come to Marksburg, they want to see the torture chamber. We actually have a space that was originally the horse stable, and our guides explain that it looks like a torture chamber there but it was really a stable. We explained, through the instruments exposed there, what it was. We can explain the phenomenon of torture, but we made it very clear that there was no torture chamber in most castles. I don’t even know a castle where there is an original torture chamber to visit. But there is an original torture chamber and it is in the city hall of Regensburg. This I really recommend the visit. It was not called a torture chamber, but an “interrogation room”, because criminals were interrogated there in a painful way. I’ve been there and it’s very expressive, it’s something original.

Much of what is said today and thought about the Middle Ages, about torture, was actually created out of the Enlightenment.

This is mainly the fault of Romantics. They did have a positive and pleasant side, but they introduced Gothic novels and in that period novels like Dracula and Frankenstein, or the writer Edgar Allan Poe were written. The Middle Ages, or the past times, were portrayed as something brutal, scary and many things were invented, which didn’t even exist, and unfortunately, this was carried over by Hollywood films. Today we fight against it here in the castle, so that people have another image of the Middle Ages.

Germany has a lot to offer for those interested in medieval history. What will foreign travelers interested in the Middle Ages find in Germany? Why is Germany a beautiful travel destination for history fans, who don’t just want to learn about XX century history?

With regard to the Middle Ages, medieval castles and churches are important. According to a medieval plan, the Cologne Cathedral was built even though it was completed in 1880 but is an XIII century Gothic church. Also many other castles, the Ulm Cathedral, the Regensburg Cathedral (St. Peter Dom), and other large churches that are a record of the Middle Ages. And also the historic center of the cities, there are many that are well preserved.

In the Second World War, many large historic centers were destroyed, as in Kassel or Nuremberg, but many small towns were maintained and today they give us a good idea of what the Middle Ages were like throughout Germany. For example, in Celle, or Rothenburg ob der Tauber, or in Regensburg, they are still historically intact cities in which you can get a good picture of the Middle Ages. Also in eastern Germany, as in Görlitz, completely preserved.

This is a question that we ask all of our guests in our interviews. Which museum, city, or attraction in Germany would you recommend to travelers?

Some I have already mentioned here. It is worthwhile to go to Regensburg, or Quedlingburg (Sachsen-Anhalt), or the Middle Rhine Valley, between Koblenz and Rüdesheim am Rhein, with a wonderful cultural landscape, of the cities on the riverside, with castles, vineyards, this is definitely worthy of being seen. In addition, there are also the highlights, such as the Cologne Cathedral, or Dresden, which are incredible tourist attractions.

A question that came from Instagram: Is there a castle with greater historical significance? If there are any with greater historical relevance?

In this regard, it must be said that Germany, unlike England and France, was already in the Middle Ages, federalist. There was a king and this king didn’t have a capital (a main city), there was no capital in Germany like London or Paris. There was the king, who was constantly traveling around the kingdom, on his horse, he moved from castle to castle. They were special castles in which he could stay and stay safe. But these castles were not a castle in Germany’s capital, like Windsor or London Tower in England. This didn’t exist in Germany.

However, there is a castle that was very important for Germany, which has played an important role for centuries, which is the Wartburg castle. It was not the residence of a king, but important facts happened to Germany. It was in Wartburg that Luther translated the Gospel. Then, where the movements for democracy started in the 19th century. This is not medieval (laughs), but Wartburg is an important German castle. However, as stated, there is not only one medieval castle that has played a special role.

Our phone conversation took place in late April (2020) and was translated and transcribed by me (Rafaella). The captions of the photos are also our own. We kindly thank Mr. Wagner for the images provided and for the interview.