Schloss Gaienhofen - Gaienhofen, BW, D - Castles on Waymarking.com

The castle was built on the Höri peninsula on the edge of Lake Constance. The location was strategically chosen directly on the Untersee, where the Rhine widens towards Lake Constance.

The castle was built for the Bishop of Constance Gebhard III. built by Zähringen (1085-1110) as a hunting estate. Documentary mention dates back to the year 1295, when Albrecht von Klingenberg, Reichsvogt in Konstanz, handed over the castle and village with the bailiwick and other properties to his brother Bishop Heinrich II. At that time the castle, like most of the nearby castles, was owned by the Lords of Klingenberg. In 1311 Albrecht von Klingenberg sold it to the diocese of Constance, which often mortgaged it well into the 16th century. In the 15th century the castle became the seat of episcopal bailiffs and chief bailiffs. So the rule was pledged to Bishop Konrad von Freisingen, von Klingenberg, von Reischach and von Heuberg.

Since 1412, Konrad von Reischach, who lived in Gaienhofen Castle with Isabella, daughter of King James III. from Mallorca, was married. The marriage with the king's daughter produced a son, Michael. In connection with the Council of Constance (1414-1418), father and son gave a party at Gaienhofen Castle. Following this festival, Michael was murdered by two guests, Heinrich von Randegg and Hans von Stuben, for an unknown reason around the ninth hour of the night of St. Bartholomew 1417 on the castle stairs. His father died a year later without issue.

The castle was repeatedly the scene of military operations. So it was occupied by Confederates in 1499 during the Swiss War. In the Peasants' War of 1524/25 it was rebellious peasants and in the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) Swedish troops who occupied the castle and plundered the surrounding area. In 1632, a naval battle between the Imperialists and Swedes took place in front of the walls of the castle (see Naval War on Lake Constance 1632–1648).

Around 1700, Prince-Bishop Marquard Rudolf von Rodt (1689-1704) expanded the castle into a Baroque palace. The castle was called "Castle of the nine towers", of which only eight could be located. Due to secularization, the castle fell to the Margraviate of Baden in 1803. In 1821 it was bought by the Baden captain Wilhelm Reinhard von Weiterdingen. In 1854 the last tower was demolished.

In 1903, Gaienhofen Palace was leased to Georg von Petersenn, a professor at the Berlin Music Academy. The German State Educational Home for Girls (D.L.E.H.f.M.), founded in Stolpe am Wannsee in 1900 and based on the principles of the reform pedagogue Hermann Lietz, was relocated to Gaienhofen in 1904. The founding by Bertha von Petersenn was based on the idea of ??enabling girls to be independent and professional through varied training. The D.L.E.H.f.M. was managed by their daughter Jutta von Petersenn. In 1906 Georg von Petersenn bought the castle and in 1911 his daughter Hermann Lietz married. Under the direction of Alfred Andreesen, the relationships of the D.L.E.H.f.M. to the country educational home for girls in Gaienhofen. On June 8, 1925 there was a serious fire in the palace. The burned-out rural education home was then rebuilt and continued after it was sold to Elisabeth Müller from Flensburg until 1944. It was not until 1933 that the first boy was admitted to the boarding school, which had previously only been attended by girls. In the turmoil of World War II there was no regular schooling.

In 1946, one year after the end of the war, the efforts of the Constance pastor Hermann Senges and the Constance dean Friedrich Mono asked the school association of the Evangelical boarding school (today the school foundation of the Evangelical Church in Baden) to take over the sponsorship and responsibility for the boarding school - the The Protestant boarding school Schloss Gaienhofen was founded. In 1952 the Evangelical Church acquired the castle. The castle, which was modified several times for this purpose and supplemented by new buildings, served the Protestant boarding school as a boarding house for girls. The boarding school closed in the summer of 2013.

The castle contains multifunctional rooms that are used by the school and its administration.

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