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Glücksburg Castle (German: Schloss Glücksburg, Danish: Lyksborg Slot) is one of the most significant Renaissance castles in Northern Europe. The castle was the headquarters of the ducal lines of the house of Glücksburg and temporarily served as the primary residence of the Danish monarch. The building is in the town of Glücksburg, located in Northern Germany on the Flensburg Firth. The structure is a water castle. The ducal house of Glücksburg derived its name from the castle and its family members are related to almost all European dynasties. Nowadays, the castle is one of the most famous sights in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Within the castle is a museum which is open to the public.
The history of today's castle grounds began in Schleswig in 1192, when the double monastery of St. Michael auf dem Berge was dissolved. The nuns then moved to the St. John's Monastery in Schleswig, which still exists today, while the monks left the place and went to Guldholm on Langsee. Between 1209 and 1210 the monks founded a new Cistercian monastery in Glücksburg. In the vicinity of the monastery was an older motte-and-bailey castle, parts of which have been preserved to this day. The so-called Ryd Abbey and the extensive estates were inhabited and managed by the monks in the following centuries. At the same time, the neighboring town Flensburg still had several castles, as well as the large, militarily important Duburg fortress, built in 1411. In the course of the Reformation, the Rüdekloster was secularized in 1538 and came into the possession of the Danish King Christian III in 1544. The monastery buildings served as the administrator's residence. In the beginning of the 16th century, the condition of the Duburg fortress in Flensburg began to decline.
The history of the castle itself begins in 1582. The Danish King Frederick II encumbered his brother John, known as Hans the Younger, with the lands of Sundewitt, the Reinfeld monastery and the old Ryd Abbey, amongst other things. John, who already had considerable possessions, acquired additional areas. The government of the duchy was largely in the hands of John's brother. Although John was a partitioned-off duke, because the estates refused him homage, he tried to increase his fortune and his reputation in other ways. He worked successfully as an early mercantilist entrepreneur. As a typical duke of his time, he expressed his wealth with various buildings and founded, among other things, the castles in Reinfeld and Ahrensbök, which have since been demolished. He modernized the Sønderborg Castle and in 1582 began building Glücksburg castle, where the Ryd Abbey used to be. The castle was built to serve as a comfortable country castle for himself and his family.
After John's death in 1622, the duchy of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg was divided amongst his heirs. John's son Philipp received the castle and the lands of Glücksburg and thus founded the first, the elder line of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. The castle remained the seat of the Dukes of Glücksburg for over 150 years, but the small titular duchy itself remained relatively insignificant. Apart from the fact that the members of the house repeatedly married into other noble families, they played no role in the history of the country. During this time, the Glücksburg castle was more of a continuously inhabited noble family seat and less of a courtly residence. In the middle of the 17th century, the palace and its outbuildings housed a court of an average of 80 people.
in 1825, The Danish King Frederik VI handed over the fief and thus the castle and title to his brother-in-law Friedrich Wilhelm from the Holstein-Beck family. Friedrich Wilhelm assisted the Danish king during the Congress of Vienna and was accordingly rewarded with the Ducal title. Raised in Denmark and Prussia, the new duke was a direct descendant of the palace's builder, John III. Together with his wife, Louise Caroline, a daughter of the ducal governor Prince Charles of Hessen-Kassel, he founded the younger line of the House of Glücksburg. Friedrich Wilhelm no longer lived in the castle himself; however, his wife resided here until the first Schleswig War. Among their ten children was the later Danish king Christian IX – the progenitor of today's Glücksburg line on the Danish throne.
The Danish royal family often used their relatives' castle as a summer residence. From 1854, King Frederik VII occasionally resided at Glücksburg, until he died childless here in 1863. According to the London Protocol of 1852, Christian IX. of the Glücksburg line became his successor. Under him, the castle gained a reputation as the cradle of Europe, and the new king was often referred to as Europe's father-in-law. From Christian's marriage to Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel, three daughters were married into the imperial and royal houses of Hanover (and Brunswick), Russia and the United Kingdom: The youngest daughter Thyra with Ernst August, Crown Prince of Hanover, the middle Dagmar with Emperor Alexander III and elder Alexandra with King Edward VII. The second son became King George I of Greece and the grandson Carl became King of Norway. From this time forward, the House of Glücksburg is related to almost all major European dynasties.
During the Second Schleswig War in 1864, the castle served as quarters for Prince Charles of Prussia and was later even used as a hospital and barracks. With the war, the long personal union of the Danish royal family and the Schleswig-Holstein duchies ended, and the castle passed into Prussian ownership. On September 16, 1868, the Prussian King (later emperor) Wilhelm I visited the castle during a visit to Flensburg to decide on its future fate and use.
The Flensburger Nachrichten newspaper reported on September 22: "[...] Glücksburg had festively adorned itself for the arrival of the king; There were three gates of honor, one at Ruhethal, the second in front of the entrance to the town, the third at the driveway to the castle, and flags and floral decorations in abundance. The king arrived the 16th, at 3 p.m., at the second gate of honor, Pastor Vogel gave a brief address, which the monarch graciously returned. A few peasant girls had gathered at the castle to offer the father of the country butter, bread, cheese and fruit as well as fishing products. [...] The whole stay in the village and at the castle lasted only a small hour. "
King Wilhelm I showed no further personal interest in the property, and the War Ministry no longer needed it. In 1869, the king transferred the castle back to the ducal family, by means of a "highest decree".
Duke Karl, a brother of King Christian IX, used the palace again as a permanent residence from 1871. When he moved in, he and his wife Wilhelmine were welcomed by the Friedrichsgarde.
The structures of the Glücksburg Castle made it through the world wars without suffering any substantial damages. Only the castle's bells were seized and melted down during World War I.
Towards the end of World War II, under the Doenitz administration, Germany moved the seat of government to Mürwik in the city of Flensburg. During this period, Albert Speer resided inside the castle. Here he was arrested by the allied forces on May 23, 1945, and brought to Flensburg. Until the summer of 1945, the castle was used as a prison for 200 former members of the Wehrmacht. In May 1945, British troops looted the castle, and took numerous valuables, many of which were later returned. Furthermore, 32 caskets in the tomb had been opened. While the looting took place, British troops detained the ducal family at gunpoint. The return of the looted items followed an appeal to Queen Mary, mother of the British King George VI, who was a niece of Friedrich Ferdinand.
In 1922, the family brought the castle into a foundation to preserve Glücksburg and allow the public to participate in the cultural monument. As part of this, most of the castle was converted into a museum, with concerts and other cultural events having been held in the building and its orangery. One of the venues for the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival is at Glücksburg Castle.
In the non-profit foundation statutes, the task of the foundation is formulated as follows:
The purpose of the foundation is to promote art and culture as well as monument protection. The purpose of the foundation is realized in particular through the endeavor to preserve Glücksburg Castle and the inventory belonging to the foundation's assets in accordance with their high cultural and historical status, to use them and make them accessible to the public. ...
The board of directors of the foundation is provided by the ducal family itself. The current managing director is Christoph zu Schleswig-Holstein, who has held this office since 1980. In addition to the family, the board of trustees also includes representatives of the state of Schleswig-Holstein and the district administrator of the Schleswig-Flensburg district. The family still has the domiciliary rights. The foundation is responsible for the care and protection of the castle, which - like many water castles - has to struggle with constant moisture. As a last major measure - after a legal dispute with the state regarding the assumption of costs - the facades of Glücksburg were extensively renovated from 2005. Half of the financial resources of around 440,000 euros were provided by the EU and the other half by the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments, the German Foundation for Monument Protection, the Friends of Schloss Glücksburg e. V. and various smaller foundations.
On December 21, 1582, a contract was signed with Nikolaus Karies for the construction of the castle. Johann III assigned Karies with the demolition of the monastery and lead the work on the new building. The Duke provided him with 6,000 Luebian marks for the construction work - which at that time was the equivalent of around 1200 cattle.
Occasionally French models are cited as the inspiration behind the castle - the floor plan of the castle is similar to the central building of Chambord - but it is a typical building of its era and region. The architecture is typical for Schleswig-Holstein from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. "Sister buildings" can be found, for example, in the Nütschau Priory and above all in Ahrensburg Castle, which was built almost simultaneously. Glücksburg Castle is the largest and probably most well known structure of this form of Schleswig-Holstein architecture. The motto of the builder Johann III was G ott g ebe G lück m it F rieden (God Gives Luck With Peace). The letters G G G M F are therefore placed above the main entrance. The name of the castle is derived from this motto. Glück means luck, and Glücksburg thus means Luck Castle.
The building was built in a stylistic transition period. While Johann's uncle Adolf I, for example, built more modern, three-winged buildings, with the Husum Castle or the Reinbek Castle, the nephew stuck to more traditional building forms of the region. And although it was planned and executed as a manorial residence, the location in the water, the embrasure like openings in the tower basements, the originally merlon towers and the high-lying first floor and the now-gone drawbridge of the courtyard still remind of a past in which a noble residence also had to be fortified.
The building stands on a 2.5-meter-high granite base and rises directly out of the water. The castle is made of white plastered brick, which was largely removed and reused from the demolished monastery. The base area is a square with an edge length of almost 30 meters, consisting of three individual houses, each with its own floor plan and roof. While the middle house accommodated the large halls and the vestibule, the two side houses were fitted with the living rooms. The palace chapel, with its east-facing altar wall, is the only room that was placed across the overall floor plan and is located in the east and middle house at the same time.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Glücksburg Castle”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.