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150-578: Neuschwanstein Castle ( German : Schloss Neuschwanstein , pronounced [ˈʃlɔs nɔʏˈʃvaːnʃtaɪn] ; Southern Bavarian : Schloss Neischwanstoa ) is a 19th-century historicist palace on a rugged hill of the foothills of the Alps in the very south of Germany . It is located in the Swabia region of Bavaria , in the municipality of Schwangau , above the incorporated village of Hohenschwangau , which

300-465: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it

450-622: A keep of 90 metres (300 ft) height planned in the upper courtyard, resting on a three- nave chapel. This was not realised, and a connection wing between the Gatehouse and the Bower saw the same fate. Plans for a castle garden with terraces and a fountain west of the Palas were also abandoned after the King's death. The interior of the royal living space in the palace was mostly completed in 1886;

600-418: A moat , they jointly consisted of a hall, a keep , and a fortified tower house . In the 19th century, only ruins remained of the twin medieval castles; those of Hinterhohenschwangau served as a lookout place known as Sylphenturm . The ruins above the family palace were known to the crown prince from his excursions. He first sketched one of them in his diary in 1859. When the young king came to power in 1864,

750-402: A second language , and 75–100   million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220   million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90   million people, or 16% of

900-466: A trench along the fortress to deter attack. Later he had cannons placed in the bastions on the walls. From 1898 to 1901 the two buildings left of the main gate, the Ducal Palace and the old groundskeepers house, were constructed and expanded respectively. A motion to build a cableway up to the castle in 1911 was rejected because it was believed it would ruin the beauty of the castle. The castle

1050-612: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become

1200-445: A 30-year old American near Marienbrücke, killing one of them. Neuschwanstein is a global symbol of the era of Romanticism . The palace has appeared prominently in several movies such as Helmut Käutner 's Ludwig II (1955) and Luchino Visconti 's Ludwig (1972), both biopics about the King; the musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), the spoof comedy Spaceballs , and the war drama The Great Escape (1963). It served as

1350-429: A German-born Cape Town business man saw the castle and decided to replicate it in upon his return to Hout Bay , South Africa. He started building Lichtenstein Castle in 1986 and in 1998 it was completed, He eventually turned it into a guest house before dying there. Some time after his death, his widow sold it to an overseas buyer. Allegedly haunted, the castle is one of the area's most popular attractions. In 2012,

1500-582: A credit of 6 million marks, which was denied. In April, he followed Bismarck's advice to apply for the money to his parliament. In June, the Bavarian government decided to depose the King who was living at Neuschwanstein at the time. On 9 June, he was incapacitated and on 10 June, he had the deposition commission arrested in the gatehouse. In expectation of the commission, he alerted the gendarmerie and fire brigades of surrounding places for his protection. A second commission headed by Bernhard von Gudden arrived on

1650-590: A decorative purpose as part of the ensemble. Its viewing platform provides a vast view over the Alpine foothills to the north. The northern end of the upper courtyard is defined by the Knights' House. The three-storey building is connected to the Rectangular Tower and the Gatehouse by means of a continuous gallery fashioned with a blind arcade . From the point of view of castle Romanticism, the Knights' House

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1800-646: A future designation as UNESCO World Heritage Sites . A joint candidature with other representative palaces of the Romantic historicism is discussed, including for example Schwerin Palace . German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It

1950-559: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from

2100-640: A length of 150 metres on the top of a cliff ridge. The elongate building is furnished with numerous towers, ornamental turrets, gables, balconies, pinnacles, and sculptures. Following Romanesque style, most window openings are fashioned as bi- and triforia . Before the backdrop of the Tegelberg and the Pöllat Gorge in the south and the Alpine foothills with their lakes in the north, the ensemble of individual buildings provides varying picturesque views of

2250-434: A medieval aristocratic estate — were dispensed with. The palace complex is entered through the symmetrical Gatehouse flanked by two stair towers. The eastward-pointing gate building is the only structure of the palace whose wall area is fashioned in high-contrast colours; the exterior walls are cased with red bricks, the court fronts with yellow limestone . The roof cornice is surrounded by pinnacles. The upper floor of

2400-466: A monarch was mostly public. The interior decoration with mural paintings, tapestry , furniture and other handicraft generally refers to the King's favourite themes: the grail legend , the works of Wolfram von Eschenbach , and their interpretation by Richard Wagner. The eastward drawing room is adorned with themes from the Lohengrin legend. The furniture, including sofa, table, armchairs, and seats in

2550-458: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained

2700-480: A northward alcove , is comfortable and homelike. Next to the drawing room is a little artificial grotto that forms the passage to the study. The unusual room, originally equipped with an artificial waterfall and a rainbow machine, is connected to a little conservatory . Depicting the Hörselberg grotto, it relates to Wagner's Tannhäuser , as does the décor of the adjacent study. In the park of Linderhof Palace

2850-696: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In

3000-483: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it

3150-537: A simple building in place of the old Vorderhohenschwangau Castle, but they were rejected and replaced by increasingly extensive drafts, culminating in a bigger palace modelled on the Wartburg. The king insisted on a detailed plan and on personal approval of each and every draft. Ludwig's control went so far that the palace has been regarded as his own creation rather than that of the architects involved. Whereas contemporary architecture critics derided Neuschwanstein, one of

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3300-457: A smooth course of visits, some rooms and the court buildings were finished first. Initially, the visitors were allowed to move freely in the palace, causing the furniture to wear quickly. When Bavaria became a republic in 1918, the government socialised the civil list . The resulting dispute with the House of Wittelsbach led to a split in 1923: King Ludwig's palaces including Neuschwanstein fell to

3450-403: A view of the castle in the background), "Lohengrin'" (castle courtyard, open corridor, path to the chapel); ... . The building design was drafted by the stage designer Christian Jank and realised by the architect Eduard Riedel . For technical reasons, the ruined castles could not be integrated into the plan. Initial ideas for the palace drew stylistically on Nuremberg Castle and envisaged

3600-793: A €2 commemorative coin for the German Bundesländer series in 2012. In 2007, it was a finalist in the widely publicised online selection of the New Seven Wonders of the World . A meteorite that reached Earth spectacularly on 6 April 2002 at the Austrian border near Hohenschwangau was named Neuschwanstein after the palace. Three fragments were found: Neuschwanstein I (1.75 kg (3.9 lb), found July 2002) and Neuschwanstein II (1.63 kg (3.6 lb), found May 2003) on

3750-601: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as

3900-612: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German

4050-706: Is also the location of Hohenschwangau Castle . The closest larger town is Füssen . The castle stands above the narrow gorge of the Pöllat stream, east of the Alpsee and Schwansee lakes, close to the mouth of the Lech into Forggensee . Despite the main residence of the Bavarian monarchs at the time—the Munich Residenz —being one of the most extensive palace complexes in the world, King Ludwig II of Bavaria felt

4200-558: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic

4350-457: Is apparent throughout, and he took a keen personal interest in the design and decoration. An example can be seen in his comments, or commands, regarding a mural depicting Lohengrin in the Palas: "His Majesty wishes that ... the ship be placed further from the shore, that Lohengrin's neck be less tilted, that the chain from the ship to the swan be of gold and not of roses, and finally that the style of

4500-478: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German

4650-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25   million speak it as

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4800-535: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in

4950-611: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as

5100-565: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are

5250-405: Is on the third floor of the palace in the east wing of the Palas. It consists of eight rooms with living space and several smaller rooms. In spite of the gaudy décor, the living space with its moderate room size and its sofas and suites makes a relatively modern impression on today's visitors. King Ludwig II did not attach importance to representative requirements of former times, in which the life of

5400-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and

5550-597: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as

5700-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German

5850-498: Is situated in the west wing of the Palas. With its height of 13 metres (43 ft), it occupies the third and fourth floors. Julius Hofmann modelled it after the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche in the Munich Residenz . On three sides, it is surrounded by colorful arcades, ending in an apse that was intended to hold King Ludwig's throne but that was never completed. The throne dais is surrounded by paintings of Jesus,

6000-525: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c.  1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period

6150-776: Is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ),

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6300-578: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish

6450-485: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers

6600-637: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to

6750-639: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as

6900-575: The Allied forces. The Allied occupation authorities eventually returned the palace to the reconstituted Bavarian state government. Thereafter the Bavarian archives used some of the rooms as a provisional store for salvaged archival material, as its premises in Munich had been bombed. The effect of the Neuschwanstein ensemble is highly stylistic, both externally and internally. The king's influence

7050-568: The Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German

7200-537: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share

7350-586: The Echaz river, a small tributary of the Neckar river . The ruins of Lichtenstein Castle's medieval predecessor, the Burg Alt-Lichtenstein, lies 500 metres (1,600 feet) away. Beginning around 1100, a castle belonging to a family of ministerials of the counts of Achalm and later counts of Württemberg , was located on the escarpment above the source of the river Echaz. The castle and its denizens,

7500-417: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language

7650-522: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout

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7800-556: The Great Turkish War . The coat of arms of their family, a pair of golden angel wings on a blue background, is still displayed in the Great hall of the castle. In 1802, King Frederick I of Württemberg came into possession of the castle, dismantled it to its foundations and replaced it with a hunting lodge . As a consequence of 19th-century Romanticism , medieval virtues like chivalry became increasingly popular among

7950-746: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in

8100-666: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c.  765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in

8250-676: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung

8400-550: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit.   ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this

8550-447: The Twelve Apostles , and six canonised kings. The mural paintings were created by Wilhelm Hauschild . The floor mosaic was completed after the king's death. The chandelier is fashioned after a Byzantine crown. The Throne Hall makes a sacral impression. Following the king's wish, it amalgamated the Grail Hall from Parzival with a symbol of the divine right of kings , an incorporation of unrestricted sovereign power, which King Ludwig as

8700-400: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and   Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German

8850-422: The historical romances of Walter Scott , some of which Hauff reviewed and wrote a parody about. King Frederick's cousin, Count (later Duke) Wilhelm von Urach , a German patriot, who was very interested in medieval history, art, and architecture, was so inspired by the book that he purchased the estate – at that time merely another crumbling ruin in the Swabian Jura – from the king in 1837, after negotiations for

9000-408: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from

9150-419: The royal court but contained only the King's private lodging and servants' rooms. The court buildings served decorative rather than residential purposes: The palace was intended to serve King Ludwig II as a kind of inhabitable theatrical setting. As a temple of friendship , it was also dedicated to the life and work of Richard Wagner, who died in 1883 without visiting the building. In the end, Ludwig II lived in

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9300-614: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In

9450-414: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of

9600-426: The Gatehouse is surmounted by a crow-stepped gable and held King Ludwig II's first lodging at Neuschwanstein, from which he occasionally observed the building work before the hall was completed. The ground floors of the Gatehouse were intended to accommodate the stables. The passage through the Gatehouse, crowned with the royal coat of arms of Bavaria , leads directly into the courtyard. The courtyard has two levels,

9750-417: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of

9900-446: The German legends of Lohengrin, the Swan Knight. Hohenschwangau, where King Ludwig spent much of his youth, had decorations of these sagas. These themes were taken up in the operas of Richard Wagner . Many rooms bear a border depicting the various operas written by Wagner, including a theatre permanently featuring the set of one such play. Many of the interior rooms remain undecorated, with only 14 rooms finished before Ludwig's death. With

10050-422: The German side, and Neuschwanstein III (2.84 kg (6.3 lb), found June 2003) on the Austrian side near Reutte . The meteorite is classified as an enstatite chondrite with unusually large proportions of pure iron (29%), enstatite , and the extremely rare mineral sinoite (Si 2 N 2 O). As of 2015, Neuschwanstein and Ludwig's Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee palaces are on the German tentative list for

10200-414: The German states and included Hohenschwangau Castle, Lichtenstein Castle , Hohenzollern Castle , and numerous buildings on the Rhine , such as Stolzenfels Castle . The inspiration for the construction of Neuschwanstein came from two journeys that Ludwig took in 1867: one in May to the reconstructed Wartburg near Eisenach , and another in July to the Château de Pierrefonds , which Eugène Viollet-le-Duc

10350-399: The German states; the invention of the printing press c.  1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of

10500-623: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by

10650-547: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are

10800-414: The King had installed a similar grotto of greater dimensions. Opposite the study follows the dining room, adorned with themes of courtly love . Since the kitchen in Neuschwanstein is situated three stories below the dining room, it was impossible to install a wishing table (dining table disappearing by means of a mechanism) as at Linderhof Palace and Herrenchiemsee. Instead, the dining room was connected with

10950-787: The King's lifetime amounted to 6.2 million German gold marks (equivalent to €47 million in 2021), almost twice the initial cost estimate of 3.2 million marks. As his private means were insufficient for his increasingly escalating construction projects, the King continuously opened new lines of credit. In 1876, a court counselor was replaced after pointing out the danger of insolvency. By 1883, he already owed 7 million marks, and in spring 1884 and August 1885 debt conversions of 7.5 million marks and 6.5 million marks, respectively, became necessary. Even after his debts had reached 14 million marks, King Ludwig II insisted on continuation of his architectural projects; he threatened suicide if his creditors seized his palaces. In early 1886, Ludwig asked his cabinet for

11100-518: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c.  thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c.  1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy

11250-491: The New Lichtenstein Castle began in 1840 and was managed by Johann Georg Rupp  [ de ] . This structure, its design heavily influenced by Count Wilhelm, used the ancient foundations of the castle of 1390, and stood up to three stories tall, with a curtain wall and courtyard to complete the castle complex. A barbican and a sprawling outer bailey , complete with corner bastions and turrets ,

11400-735: The Palas accommodates administrative and servants' rooms and the rooms of today's palace administration. The King's staterooms are situated in the upper stories. The anterior structure accommodates the lodgings in the third floor, above them the Hall of the Singers . The upper floors of the west-facing posterior structure are filled almost completely by the Throne Hall. The total floor space of all floors amounts to nearly 6,000 square metres (65,000 sq ft). Neuschwanstein houses numerous significant interior rooms of German historicism . The palace

11550-519: The Singers and the Ballroom. It was one of the King's favourite projects for his palace. The rectangular room was decorated with themes from Lohengrin and Parzival . Its longer side is terminated by a gallery that is crowned by a tribune, modelled after the Wartburg. The eastern narrow side is terminated by a stage that is structured by arcades and known as the Sängerlaube . The Hall of the Singers

11700-515: The abdicated King's appanage . This allowed Ludwig II to start the architectural project of building a private refuge in the familiar landscape far from the capital Munich , so that he could live out his idea of the Middle Ages. In a letter to Richard Wagner in May 1868, Ludwig wrote: It is my intention to rebuild the old castle ruin of Hohenschwangau near the Pöllat Gorge in the authentic style of

11850-473: The base to the top of the mountain and visit the grounds and courtyard without a ticket, but they will not be admitted to the interior of the castle. Ticket sales are processed exclusively via the ticket centre in Hohenschwangau. As of 2008, the total number of visitors exceeded 60 million. In 2004, the revenues were booked as €6.5 million. On June 14, 2023, two young American tourists were assaulted by

12000-634: The castle shall be kept medieval." The suite of rooms within the Palas contains the Throne Room, King Ludwig's suite, the Singers' Hall, and the Grotto. The interior and especially the throne room Byzantine-Arab construction resumes to the chapels and churches of the royal Sicilian Norman-Swabian period in Palermo related to the Kings of Germany House of Hohenstaufen . Throughout, the design pays homage to

12150-406: The comfortable neo-Gothic palace known as Hohenschwangau Castle. Finished in 1837, the palace became his family's summer residence, and his elder son Ludwig (born 1845) spent a large part of his childhood here. Vorderhohenschwangau Castle and Hinterhohenschwangau Castle sat on a rugged hill overlooking Schwanstein Castle, two nearby lakes ( Alpsee and Schwansee ), and the village. Separated by only

12300-442: The construction of a new palace in place of the two ruined castles became the first in his series of palace building projects. As he called the new palace New Hohenschwangau Castle, the confusing result was that Hohenschwangau and Schwanstein effectively swapped names: Hohenschwangau Castle replaced the ruins of Schwanstein Castle, and Neuschwanstein Castle replaced the ruins of the two Hohenschwangau Castles. Only after Ludwig's death

12450-415: The construction site was the principal employer in the region. In 1880, about 200 craftsmen were occupied at the site, not counting suppliers and other persons indirectly involved in the construction. At times when the King insisted on particularly close deadlines and urgent changes, reportedly up to 300 workers per day were active, sometimes working at night by the light of oil lamps. Statistics from

12600-404: The court face of the Palas (main building) are depicted in the local Lüftlmalerei style, a fresco technique typical for Allgäu farmers' houses, while the unimplemented drafts for the Knights' House gallery foreshadow elements of Art Nouveau . Characteristic of Neuschwanstein's design are theatre themes: Christian Jank drew on coulisse drafts from his time as a scenic painter. The basic style

12750-401: The court front with colourful frescos . The court-side gable is crowned with a copper lion, the western (outward) gable with the likeness of a knight. Had it been completed, the palace would have had more than 200 interior rooms, including premises for guests and servants, as well as for service and logistics. Ultimately, no more than about 15 rooms and halls were finished. In its lower stories

12900-482: The courtyard is delimited by the Palas (hall). It constitutes the real main and residential building of the castle and contains the King's stateroom and the servants' rooms. The Palas is a colossal five-story structure in the shape of two huge cuboids that are connected in a flat angle and covered by two adjacent high gable roofs. The building's shape follows the course of the ridge. In its angles there are two stair towers,

13050-668: The current structure. It was one of the most impressive fortifications of the Late Middle Ages . Despite such features as early casemates that made it nearly unassailable, the castle ceased to be the ducal seat in 1567 and fell into disrepair. During the Thirty Years' War (1618–48), it was taken over by the Tyrolean line of the Habsburgs following the death of the last member of the Lichtenstein family in 1687 during

13200-535: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with

13350-456: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in

13500-519: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of

13650-582: The elites. Parallel to this, medieval architecture, primarily Gothic style , returned to public attention in Germany with the unfinished Cologne Cathedral , leading to the rise of Gothic Revival architecture . Other notable examples of this romantic infatuation with medieval structures and architecture are the Votive Church of Vienna and Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria. This nostalgic longing for

13800-524: The era were running warm water and toilets with automatic flushing. The largest room of the palace by area is the Hall of the Singers, followed by the Throne Hall. The 27-by-10-metre (89 by 33 ft) Hall of the Singers is located in the eastern, court-side wing of the Palas, in the fourth floor above the King's lodgings. It is designed as an amalgamation of two rooms of the Wartburg: The Hall of

13950-497: The first and second floor of the Palas and a great banquet hall were further abandoned projects. In fact, a complete development of Neuschwanstein had never even been planned, and at the time of the King's death there was not a utilisation concept for numerous rooms. The King never intended to make the palace accessible to the public. No more than six weeks after the King's death, the Prince-Regent Luitpold ordered

14100-402: The first floor, the gatehouse being finished first. At the end of 1882, it was completed and fully furnished, allowing Ludwig to take provisional lodgings there and observe the ongoing construction work. In 1874, management of the civil works passed from Eduard Riedel to Georg von Dollmann . The topping out ceremony for the Palas was in 1880, and in 1884 the King moved in to the new building. In

14250-522: The head of a constitutional monarchy no longer held. The union of the sacral and regal is emphasised by the portraits in the apse of six canonised Kings: Saint Louis of France, Saint Stephen of Hungary , Saint Edward the Confessor of England, Saint Wenceslaus of Bohemia, Saint Olaf of Norway, and Saint Henry , Holy Roman Emperor. Apart from the large ceremonial rooms, several smaller rooms were created for use by King Ludwig II. The royal lodging

14400-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,

14550-481: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of

14700-428: The inspiration for Disneyland 's Sleeping Beauty Castle , Cameran Palace in the animated Pokémon film Lucario and The Mystery of Mew (2005), and later similar structures. It is also visited by the character Grace Nakimura alongside Herrenchiemsee in the game The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery (1996). In 1977, Neuschwanstein Castle became the motif of a West German definitive stamp , and it appeared on

14850-402: The kitchen by means of a service lift. The bedroom adjacent to the dining room and the subsequent house chapel are the only rooms of the palace that remain in neo-Gothic style. The King's bedroom is dominated by a huge bed adorned with carvings. Fourteen carvers worked more than four years on the bed canopy with its numerous pinnacles and on the oaken panellings. It was in this room that Ludwig

15000-560: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Lichtenstein Castle (W%C3%BCrttemberg) The castle is located on an escarpment that marks the northwestern edge of the Swabian Jura . It is in the Reutlingen district and has an altitude of 817 metres (2,680 feet). and about 250 metres (820 feet) above

15150-749: The last big palace building projects of the 19th century, as kitsch , Neuschwanstein and Ludwig II's other buildings are now counted among the major works of European historicism. For financial reasons, a project similar to Neuschwanstein — Falkenstein Castle  — never got past the planning stages. The palace can be regarded as typical of 19th-century architecture. The shapes of Romanesque (simple geometric figures such as cuboids and semicircular arches), Gothic (upward-pointing lines, slim towers, delicate embellishments), and Byzantine architecture and art (the Throne Hall décor) were mingled in an eclectic fashion and supplemented with 19th-century technical achievements. The Patrona Bavariae and Saint George on

15300-536: The lobbies and corridors were painted in a simpler style by 1888. The Moorish Hall , which was desired by the King and planned below the Throne Hall, was not realised any more than the Knights' Bath , which was modelled after the Knights' Bath in the Wartburg and was intended to render homage to the knights' cult as a medieval baptism bath. A Bride Chamber in the Bower (after a location in Lohengrin ), guest rooms in

15450-482: The lords of Lichtenstein, were not friendly with the Free Imperial City of Reutlingen and were thus under frequent attack. The old castle was destroyed twice, once during the imperial civil war of 1311 and again by the citizens of Reutlingen sometime between 1377 and 1381. A new castle was built in 1390 some 500 metres (1,600 ft) from the ruins of the old one. The site selected was the same as that of

15600-442: The lower one being defined to the east by the Gatehouse and to the north by the foundations of the Rectangular Tower and by the gallery building. The southern end of the courtyard is open, imparting a view of the surrounding mountain scenery. At its western end, the courtyard is delimited by a bricked embankment, whose polygonally protracting bulge marks the choir of the originally projected chapel; this three-nave church, never built,

15750-516: The medieval past, spurred on by the works of authors such as Horace Walpole , Sir Walter Scott , and John Ruskin , meant that architecture had once again turned from the Classical to the Gothic style of architecture. In 1826, German poet and patriot Wilhelm Hauff published his book Lichtenstein , in which the castle, the book's namesake, played a major role. Hauff's novel was inspired by

15900-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted

16050-463: The need to escape from the constraints he saw himself exposed to in Munich , and commissioned Neuschwanstein Palace on the remote northern edges of the Alps as a retreat but also in honour of composer Richard Wagner , whom he greatly admired. Ludwig chose to pay for the palace out of his personal fortune and by means of extensive borrowing rather than Bavarian public funds. Construction began in 1869 but

16200-411: The next day, and the King was forced to leave the palace that night. Ludwig was put under the supervision of Gudden. On 13 June, both died under mysterious circumstances in the shallow shore water of Lake Starnberg near Berg Castle . At the time of King Ludwig's death, the palace was far from complete. The external structures of the Gatehouse and the Palas were mostly finished but the Rectangular Tower

16350-653: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from

16500-515: The northern one surmounting the palace roof by several storeys with its height of 65 metres (213 ft). With their polymorphic roofs, both towers are reminiscent of the Château de Pierrefonds . The western Palas front supports a two-storey balcony with view on the Alpsee , while northwards a low chair tower and the conservatory protract from the main structure. The entire Palas is spangled with numerous decorative chimneys and ornamental turrets,

16650-434: The old German knights' castles, and I must confess to you that I am looking forward very much to living there one day (in 3 years); ... you know the revered guest I would like to accommodate there; the location is one of the most beautiful to be found, holy and unapproachable, a worthy temple for the divine friend who has brought salvation and true blessing to the world. It will also remind you of "Tannhäuser" (Singers' Hall with

16800-432: The other two remain incomplete. All three projects together drained his resources. The King paid for his construction projects by private means and from his civil list income. Contrary to frequent claims, the Bavarian treasury was not directly burdened by his buildings. From 1871, Ludwig had an additional secret income in return for a political favour given to Otto von Bismarck . The construction costs of Neuschwanstein in

16950-403: The palace can only be visited via a 35-minute guided tour, and no photography is allowed inside the castle. There are also special guided tours that focus on specific topics. In the peak season from June until August, Neuschwanstein has as many as 6,000 visitors per day, and guests without advance reservation may have to wait several hours. Those without tickets may still walk the long driveway from

17100-636: The palace documenting the scale of the art seizures. The albums are now stored in the United States National Archives . In April 1945, the SS considered blowing up the palace to prevent the building and the artwork it contained from falling to the enemy. The plan was not realised by the SS- Gruppenführer who had been assigned the task, and at the end of the war the palace was surrendered undamaged to representatives of

17250-421: The palace for a total of only 172 days. The King's demands expanded during the construction of Neuschwanstein, and so did the expenses. Drafts and estimated costs were revised repeatedly. Initially a modest study was planned instead of the great throne hall, and projected guest rooms were struck from the drafts to make place for a Moorish Hall , which could not be realised due to lack of resources. Completion

17400-425: The palace from all directions. It was designed as the Romantic ideal of a knight's castle. Unlike real castles, whose building stock is in most cases the result of centuries of building activity, Neuschwanstein was planned from the inception as an intentionally asymmetric building, and erected in consecutive stages. Typical attributes of a castle were included, but real fortifications — the most important feature of

17550-460: The palace opened to paying visitors. The administrators of King Ludwig's estate managed to balance the construction debts by 1899. From then until World War I , Neuschwanstein was a stable and lucrative source of revenue for the House of Wittelsbach , and King Ludwig's castles were probably the single largest income source earned by the Bavarian royal family in the last years prior to 1914. To guarantee

17700-638: The palace survived the destruction of the two World Wars. Until 1944, it served as a depot for Nazi plunder that was taken from France by the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Institute for the Occupied Territories ( Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg für die besetzten Gebiete ), a suborganisation of the Nazi Party . The castle was used to catalogue the works of art. After World War II , 39 photo albums were found in

17850-465: The palace under construction at the King's death, one of the major features of the palace remained unbuilt. A massive keep , which would have formed the highest point and central focus of the ensemble, was planned for the middle of the upper courtyard but was never built, at the decision of the King's family. The foundation for the keep is visible in the upper courtyard. Neuschwanstein Castle consists of several individual structures which were erected over

18000-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation

18150-508: The purchase with the resident groundskeeper Philipp Freiherr von Hügel and his successor. Desiring an accurate emulation of a medieval castle to live in and house his substantial collection of medieval arts, arms, and armor, Wilhelm recruited architect and restorationist Carl Alexander Heideloff after turning down designs by Württemberg court painter Franz Seraph Stirnbrand and Christian Wilhelm von Faber du Faur – designs that differed substantially from today's structure. Construction of

18300-406: The rooms from the corridor that connects the exterior stairs with the main stairs, so that the King could enter and leave unseen. The servants were not allowed to use the main stairs but were restricted to the much narrower and steeper servants' stairs. Neuschwanstein welcomes almost 1.5 million visitors per year, making it one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. For security reasons,

18450-516: The same year, the direction of the project passed to Julius Hofmann  [ de ] , after Dollmann had fallen from the King's favour. The palace was erected as a conventional brick construction and later encased in various types of rock. The white limestone used for the fronts came from a nearby quarry. The sandstone bricks for the portals and bay windows came from Schlaitdorf in Württemberg . Marble from Untersberg near Salzburg

18600-505: The southwest border of the German state of Bavaria. Its surroundings are characterised by the transition between the Alpine foothills in the south (toward the nearby Austrian border) and a hilly landscape in the north that appears flat by comparison. In the Middle Ages , three castles overlooked the villages. One was called Schwanstein Castle. In 1832, Ludwig's father, King Maximilian II of Bavaria , bought its ruins to replace them with

18750-577: The state and are now managed by the Bavarian Palace Department , a division of the Bavarian finance ministry. Nearby Hohenschwangau Castle fell to the Wittelsbach Compensation Fund  [ de ] ( Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds ), whose revenues go to the House of Wittelsbach. The visitor numbers continued to rise, reaching 200,000 in 1939. Due to its secluded and strategically unimportant location,

18900-546: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,

19050-453: The statistics) received a small pension. In 1884, the King moved into the (still unfinished) Palas , and in 1885 he invited his mother Marie to Neuschwanstein on the occasion of her 60th birthday. By 1886, the external structure of the Palas (hall) was mostly finished. In the same year, Ludwig had the first, wooden Marienbrücke over the Pöllat Gorge replaced by a steel construction. Despite its size, Neuschwanstein did not have space for

19200-500: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in

19350-555: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during

19500-600: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching

19650-424: The years 1879/1880 support an immense amount of building materials: 465 tonnes (513 short tons ) of Salzburg marble, 1,550 t (1,710 short tons) of sandstone, 400,000 bricks and 2,050 cubic metres (2,680 cu yd) of wood for the scaffolding. In 1870, a society was founded for insuring the workers, for a low monthly fee, augmented by the King. The heirs of construction casualties (30 cases are mentioned in

19800-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of

19950-547: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially

20100-407: Was arrested on the night between 11 and 12 June 1886. The adjacent little house chapel is consecrated to Saint Louis , after whom the owner was named. The servant rooms are in the basement of the Palas, and are quite scantily equipped with massive oak furniture. Besides one table and one cabinet, there are two beds of 1.80 metres (5 ft 11 in) length each. Translucent glass windows separated

20250-657: Was constructed in Lietzow , at Bergen auf Rügen , Mecklenburg-Vorpommern , that copied much from Lichtenstein Castle. The Former Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Residence in Evansville, Indiana is modeled after Lichtenstein Castle. The "Leckzapfen" vineyard house constructed at Osthofen in 1891 in Worms in Rhenish Hesse is almost a miniature version of the main building of Lichtenstein Castle. Reynier Fritz,

20400-463: Was constructed in 1857. Following this, the castle was then decorated within and without by Nuremberg painter and architect Georg Eberlein  [ de ] . The most important works in the castle are "Death of the Virgin Mary" by Michael Wolgemut and two altar panels by an unknown Austrian artist called the " Master of Lichtenstein ." The castle was completed in 1842, and the king

20550-532: Was damaged during World War II , but efforts to restore it began in the immediate aftermath of the war. Once again, and thanks to local non-profit organizations like the Wüstenrot Foundation and Community Fund for the Preservation of Lichtenstein Castle, the walls were restored in 1980, followed by the second floor in 1998. The upper floor and roof were restored in 2002. In 1862, a castle

20700-492: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which

20850-501: Was first planned to be neo-Gothic but the palace was primarily built in Romanesque style in the end. The operatic themes moved gradually from Tannhäuser and Lohengrin to Parsifal . In 1868, the ruins of the medieval twin castles were completely demolished; the remains of the old keep were blown up. The foundation stone for the palace was laid on 5 September 1869; in 1872, its cellar was completed, and in 1876, everything up to

21000-400: Was fitted with several of the latest technical innovations of the late 19th century. Among other things, it had a battery-powered bell system for the servants and telephone lines. The kitchen equipment included a Rumford oven that turned the skewer with its heat and so automatically adjusted the turning speed. The hot air was used for a calorifère central heating system. Further novelties for

21150-432: Was intended to form the base of a 90-metre (295-ft) keep , the planned centrepiece of the architectural ensemble. A flight of steps at the side gives access to the upper level. Today, the foundation plan of the chapel-keep is marked out in the upper-courtyard pavement. The most striking structure of the upper court level is the Rectangular Tower (45 metres or 148 feet). Like most of the court buildings, it mostly serves

21300-455: Was it renamed Neuschwanstein . Neuschwanstein embodies both the contemporaneous architectural fashion known as castle Romanticism ( German : Burgenromantik ) and King Ludwig II's enthusiasm for the operas of Richard Wagner. In the 19th century, many castles were constructed or reconstructed, often with significant changes, to make them more picturesque. Palace-building projects similar to Neuschwanstein had been undertaken earlier in several of

21450-421: Was never completed. The castle was intended to serve as a private residence for the king but he died in 1886, and it was opened to the public shortly after his death. Since then, more than 61 million people have visited Neuschwanstein Castle. More than 1.3 million people visit annually, with as many as 6,000 per day in the summer. The municipality of Schwangau lies at an elevation of 800 m (2,620 ft) at

21600-403: Was never designed for court festivities of the reclusive King. Rather, like the Throne Hall, it served as a walkable monument in which the culture of knights and courtly love of the Middle Ages was represented. The first performance in this hall took place in 1933, and was a concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of Richard Wagner's death. The Throne Hall, 20 by 12 metres (66 by 39 ft),

21750-508: Was originally projected for 1872 but repeatedly deferred. Neuschwanstein, the symbolic medieval knight's castle, was not King Ludwig II 's only huge construction project. It was followed by the Rococo style Lustschloss of Linderhof Palace and the Baroque palace of Herrenchiemsee , a monument to the era of absolutism . Linderhof, the smallest of the projects, was finished in 1886, and

21900-468: Was present for its inauguration ceremony. In 1869, it became the official residence of the dukes of Urach. After the Revolution of 1848 , then-Count Wilhelm became the first duke of Urach . A passionate artillery officer, he desired to improve the defenses of his castle and so began to build pre- outwork caponiers in the style of the imperial Fortress of Ulm (though not on a scale as grand) and

22050-400: Was still scaffolded. Work on the Bower had not started but was completed in a simplified form by 1892 without the planned figures of the female saints. The Knights' House was also simplified. In King Ludwig's plans, the columns in the Knights' House gallery were held as tree trunks and the capitals as the corresponding crowns. Only the foundations existed for the core piece of the palace complex:

22200-508: Was the abode of a stronghold's menfolk; at Neuschwanstein, estate and service rooms were envisioned here. The Bower, which complements the Knights' House as the ladies' house but was never used as such, defines the south side of the courtyard. Both structures together form the motif of the Antwerp Castle featuring in the first act of Lohengrin . Embedded in the pavement is the floor plan of the planned palace chapel. The western end of

22350-424: Was transforming from a ruined castle into a historicist palace. Ludwig believed both buildings represented a Romanticist interpretation of the Middle Ages, as well as the musical mythology of his friend Wagner, whose operas Tannhäuser and Lohengrin had made a lasting impression on him. In February 1868, Ludwig's grandfather, King Ludwig I , died, freeing the considerable sums that were previously spent on

22500-489: Was used for the windows, the arch ribs, the columns and the capitals . The Throne Hall was a later addition to the plans and required a steel framework. The transport of building materials was facilitated by scaffolding and a steam crane that lifted the material to the construction site. Another crane was used at the construction site. The recently founded Dampfkessel-Revisionsverein (Steam Boiler Inspection Association) regularly inspected both boilers. For about two decades,

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