Schloss

About

Schloss Hundshaupten is a quadrangular castle in the village of Hundshaupten in the municipality of Egloffstein in the German county of Forchheim.

The castle is recorded for the first time in 1369 in the ownership of the Lords of Wiesenthau. It was, like almost all castles in Franconian Switzerland, built on a hill spur of the Franconian Jura plateau jutting out into the valley. Following its destruction in 1388 by Nuremberg during the War of the Cities, in 1412 by Burgrave Frederick VI of Nuremberg and in 1525 during the Peasants' War, then it was rebuilt in 1561.

In 1613, when the Wiesenthau line at Hundshaupten died out, the fief reverted to Michelsberg Abbey in the city of Bamberg. In 1661, after the Thirty Years' War, the abbey sold the castle to Hieronymus Christopher, Freiherr of Pölnitz, town commandant of Forchheim, who resided in Aschbach, now a village in the municipality of Schlüsselfeld. In the years that followed, work was carried out, but its castle character was not changed.

During 1991, part of the estate was gifted by Gudila, Freifrau of Pölnitz to the county of Forchheim, including Hundshaupten Wildlife Park.

Hieronymus Christopher Heinrich Freiherr von Pölnitz, great nephew and adoptive son of Götz Freiherr von Pölnitz and Gudila Freifrau von Pölnitz continue to live there.

The meaning of the placename of Hundshaupten can no longer be explained with certainty today. There are several possibilities that have been suggested and compared by Dorothea Fastnacht.

The names of the neighbouring villages of Hundshaupten and Hundsboden should be seen as connected. The suffix, '-haupten' probably refers to the hill spur on which, initially a castle and, later, the present schloss were built. By contrast, the suffix, '-boden', suggests a level field of fertile soil on the plateau that was cleared in the High Middle Ages as part of the expansion of cultivated land. The prefix 'Hund-' probably refers to the owner of the clearance and the castle, with the office of a Hunno (chief of a Hundertschaft ). With the firm establishment of feudal lordship, this office became hereditary during the High Middle Ages and filled by local nobility. Originally, during the Migration Era and in the Early Middle Ages the leader of a community of free farmers was called a Hunno.

Below Schloss Hundshaupten in a stand of old beech trees between the rocks of the Jura lies a family cemetery. The first interment was in 1944 was of Geheimrat Paul Fridolin Kehr. Family members who had died earlier were transferred here. The following members of the Pölnitz family are buried here:

- Max Freiherr von Pölnitz, (born 29 April 1862, Bamberg; died 7 May 1936, Aschbach), Royal Bavarian Chamberlain, District Amtmann a. D., lord of an entailed estate ( Fideicomissherr )

- Gisela Freifrau von Pölnitz, née Gräfin von Gatterburg, (born 9 September 1869, Pasing; died 7 August 1914, Munich)

- Ilona Freifrau von Pölnitz, née Gräfin Mikes von Zabola (born 28 June 1871, Zabola/Hungary, family seat of the Mikes family; died 21 December 1951, Munich)

- Hieronymus Christoph Franz Sigmund Maria Freiherr von Pölnitz (born 28 September 1901, Munich; died 23 April 1978, Bamberg), canon, honorary prelate, church historian, director of the Archives of the Archbishopric of Bamberg and Bamberg Diocesan Museum

- Hieronymus Christoph Jan Eugen Franz Gottfried (Götz) Freiherr von Pölnitz (born 11 December 1906, Munich; died 9 November 1967, Erlangen), professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and Regensburg, administrator and archives director of the Princely and Comital Fugger Foundations, estate owner, founding chancellor of the University of Regensburg

- Gudila Freifrau von Pölnitz, née Kehr (born 17 November 1913, Rome; died 11 January 2002, Ebermannstadt), member of the Bavarian Landtag from 1970 to 1982

- Paul Fridolin Kehr (born 28 December 1860; died 9 November 1944), Geheimrat, President of the Zentraldirektion of Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Professor in Marburg and Göttingen, head of the Prussian Historical Institute in Rome, Director General of the Prussian State Archives.

- Doris Kehr, née vom Baur (born 6 January 1885; died 27 February 1979)

- Ivo Kehr, memorial tablet (born 28 April 1911, Brüssel; died 17 April 1943, Nowovssisk)

- Romolus Kehr (born 18 August 1909, Brüssel; died 28 January 1924, Berlin)

- Franziska von Ballarini née Gräfin von Gatterburg (born 17 August 1863; died 17 January 1955), sister of Gisela Frfr. v. Pölnitz

- Franz Graf von Gatterburg, (born 6 November 1833, Retz, died 9 February 1898, Pasing), father of Gisela Frfr. v. Pölnitz