The three-winged former landgrave's castle in Renaissance style from the 16th and 17th centuries has served as the seat of the district administration since 1821. In the castle tower, the so-called Dietemann Pavilion, there is an art clock with Dietemann, the symbolic figure of the city of Eschwege.
The predecessor castle
Eschwege had been owned by the Landgraves of Hesse since 1264. Towards the end of the 14th century, the citizens resisted Landgrave Hermann II's attempt to restrict their municipal rights by building a castle, and therefore opened their town to Landgrave Balthasar of Thuringia in 1385. To defend his new property against the Hessian landgraves, Balthasar did what the citizenry had wanted to avoid, and from 1386 built a castle on the site of the old Honer Gate. However, he promised the city that he would not impose any further restrictions on its rights and freedoms. When the city became Hessian again in 1433, the castle initially became the official seat of Hessian ministerials.
Extension to the castle
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Landgraves of Hesse, in particular Philipp I (1509-1567), Wilhelm IV (1567-1592) and Moritz (1592-1627), had the castle expanded into a Renaissance palace in several phases The foundations and significant parts of the walls of the original facility were preserved and included in the construction. As the retirement home of Landgrave Moritz, who lived in Eschwege until his death in 1632 after he was forced to abdicate by the Hessian estates in 1627, as a temporary residence between 1632 and 1655 for Landgrave Friedrich von Hessen-Eschwege and from 1713 to 1755 as the residence of Landgrave Christian the branch line Hessen-Rotenburg-Wanfried the building got its name as "Landgrave Castle".
Significant conversions and extensions took place first in 1552, under Philip I, on the north wing and then from 1581 to 1589, under Wilhelm IV, on the north and west wings. The stair towers and gables were built in this second expansion phase, probably by the landgrave master builder Hans Wetzel (Hans von Allendorf). The pavilion tower and the arcades between the north wing and the pavilion were built from 1615 to 1617 under Landgrave Moritz.
Landgrave residence
Easter 1637, during the Thirty Years' War, the city and castle were plundered by imperial Croats under General Johann von Götzen and largely destroyed by fire. The then 20-year-old Friedrich, who was in the service of Sweden and who had received the Landgraviate of Hesse-Eschwege in 1632 on the basis of the Rotenburger-Quart-Regulation of 1627 and 1628, probably only moved into his residence in Eschwege after his Stockholm marriage in 1646 Eleonora Katharina, sister of the Swedish King Karl X Gustav. From the birthplaces of his children it can be concluded that Friedrich's wife mostly stayed in Eschwege from 1647 to 1655. Friedrich himself traveled a lot as a Swedish general, but he still made significant efforts to rebuild the palace and town. The roof lantern on the Dietemann Pavilion was created in 1650 during the restoration of the castle. Frederick fell in 1655 in Swedish service in Poland. With him, the Hesse-Eschwege side line died out in the male line, and his (partial) landgraviate fell to his brother Ernst I of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg. Although the castle was assigned to Friedrich's widow as a widow's seat, she instead went to her Swedish fiefdom of Osterholz near Bremen.
pledge
In 1667 the castle was pledged as a dowry for her daughter Christine von Hessen-Eschwege when she married Ferdinand Albrecht I of Braunschweig to the House of Braunschweig-Bevern, which he had founded. The pledge was not redeemed until 1713.
When Landgrave Ernst transferred the former Landgraviate of Hesse-Eschwege to his son Karl in 1676, he took his residence in Wanfried, since the Eschwege Castle was still pledged, and thus founded the new branch line Hesse-Wanfried. Only his son Christian von Hessen-Wanfried, who had lived in Eschwege Castle since 1713 and succeeded his half-brother Wilhelm as Landgrave of Hessen-Wanfried in 1731, gradually moved the residence back to Eschwege.
Kreisverwaltung
Mit der Verwaltungsreform in Hessen-Kassel durch das Organisationsedikt des Kurfürsten Wilhelm II. und der damit verbundenen Schaffung des Kreises Eschwege im Jahre 1821 wurde das Schloss Sitz des Landrats und der Kreisverwaltung. In dieser Funktion dient es noch heute. Heutiger Eigentümer ist die Kreisverwaltung des Werra-Meißner-Kreises (Schlossplatz 1, 37269 Eschwege).
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