Note: In this post, I discuss a so-called “castle” presently located in southwestern Poland that was once owned by the noble von Koschembahr family. My great-granduncle Wilhelm Bruck married into this family and adopted his wife’s matronymic. The manor house which survives in dilapidated condition was once the home of his father-in-law’s two widowed sisters.
Related Posts:
POST 75: THE CURIOUS TALE OF A BIEDERMEIER-STYLE FAMILY PORTRAIT FROM THE EARLY 1830S
POST 115: THE BRUCK VON KOSCHEMBAHR BRANCH OF MY FAMILY TREE
POST 172: HISTORIC TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS OF THE GERMAN REALM, INCLUDING TODAY’S POLISH TERRITORIES
In Post 115, I introduced readers to Wilhelm Bruck (1849-1907) (Figure 1), one of my great granduncles, who married Margarete von Koschembahr (1860-1948) (Figure 2) on the 14th of September 1884 in Berlin, Germany. Wilhelm was the younger brother of my great-grandfather Fedor Bruck (1834-1892) (Figure 3), the second-generation owner of the family business in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel.
Upon their marriage, Wilhelm added his wife’s matronymic to his name. The unusual adoption of a wife’s surname most typically happened when the wife was a so-called peer, that’s to say, was a hereditary titled noble in her own right. The result was that Wilhelm and his descendants became known as “Bruck-von Koschembahr,” though the Bruck surname was dropped entirely upon the family’s arrival in America.
By all measures the von Koschembahr descendants are my distant relatives though until the year before last I’d never been in contact with any members of this branch. While my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck was particularly impressed with links to nobiliary members on our ancestral line, took special pains to note them in his hand drawn ancestral trees, and may even have been in touch with members of this branch, this has never been of explicit interest to me. Regardless, in December 2023, I was contacted by an American descendant of this offshoot of my family, Christopher von Koschembahr. Christopher mentioned his mother had stumbled upon my blog. He also explained he was the son of Dieter von Koschembahr (1929-1995), who I knew to be one of the grandsons of Wilhelm Bruck and Margarete von Koschembahr.
As an aside, during our exchanges, Christopher asked when my father changed his surname from “Bruck” to “Brook.” I didn’t know at the time. However, in connection with my ongoing German citizenship application, I’ve since learned my father became Gary Otto Brook upon becoming an American citizen in July 1955. I think Christopher’s question stemmed from the fact that he serendipitously named his daughter “Brookes,” so had the original surname been retained, she would have been known as “Brookes Bruck.”
In March 2024, Christopher mentioned to me his intention to visit one of the former family estates currently located southwestern Poland, a short distance northeast of the German border town of Görlitz. Embedded in this email was a message from my third cousin, Kurt Polborn, to Christopher with some of the historical background on the property and the name of the Polish town where the estate is located, Żarki Średnie. Like Kurt and me, Christopher and Kurt are third cousins. A brief digression before I discuss what I know of the von Koschembahr family property and its former residents.
As I explained in the previous post, Post 172, upon learning that Christopher’s family once owned a “castle” in what is today called Żarki Średnie, Poland (Figure 4), I turned to a comprehensive 1893 map of Silesia once sent to me by Paul Newerla. I had discovered the town was called “Kesselbach” during the Prussian era, though was unable to find it on the detailed Silesian map. This is when I turned to the 1:25,000 scale “Urmesstischblätter” military maps discussed in my prior article. (Figure 5) After learning Żarki Średnie/Kesselbach was located 7.5km or 4.66 miles northeast of Gorlitz, I located it on map number “4756-Penzig/Pieńsk.” (Figures 6a-c)
I was unable to find Kesselbach in the meyersgaz.org database even by using “star as a wildcard” in the “Search” bar. This points out the advantage of having several different map sources one can turn to. It was only after I found an old postcard on eBay referring to the castle as “Schloß-Mittel Sohra” (Figure 7) that I found “Mittel Sohra,” in meyersgaz.org. (Figure 8)
Based on the picture in Wikipedia of the von Koschembahr “manor house,” as they refer to it, the mansion appeared to be maintained and in very good shape. (Figure 9) Other pictures found online seemed to corroborate this. (Figure 10) This was a grand illusion as Christopher discovered when he visited the former family estate in July 2024. (Figure 11) While the structure is still standing, the floors and roof are collapsing, the windows and doors are missing or broken, and roots are growing through the foundations and openings. (Figures 12a-b) When Christopher used hand gestures to communicate with Polish laborers working nearby on the day he visited, they gesticulated that tossing a hand grenade into the building would solve the problem.
As a retired archaeologist I have come across multiple such historic structures over the years while conducting pedestrian surveys on the public lands in the western United States. This is one reason the deteriorating mansion holds a peculiar fascination for me, different than it may for the average reader. Adding this to the history that my cousin Kurt Polborn told me about the place, I’ve been able to relate it to specific individuals who lived there. This is not always possible even with recent historic era ruins.
Let me relate the part of the story I’ve been told and connect it to historic documents I’ve uncovered.
I told readers at the outset of this post that my great granduncle Wilhelm Bruck married Margarete von Koschembahr and added her matronymic to his surname. Margarete’s father was Leopold von Koschembahr (1829-1874) (Figure 13) married to Amalie Mockrauer (1834-1918). (Figure 14) As a quick aside, my Bruck ancestors are related by marriage to Mockrauers over several generations, but that’s a story for another day.
Leopold von Koschembahr was Kurt Polborn’s great-great-grandfather. According to Kurt, Leopold filed for bankruptcy on a few occasions, and his large family would likely not have survived without the help of his mother and his Jewish in-laws. Amalie Mockrauer wrote in her diary about the financial disasters of her married life.
As a reflection of the self-perceived “superiority” of the nobility vis a vis the bourgeoisie, upon Wilhelm Bruck’s death in 1907, his widow Margarete dropped the Bruck surname and reverted to her maiden name.
Returning to the ruined manor house in Żarki Średnie, according to Kurt, Leopold von Koschembahr’s had two sisters. The older one was Julie Leopoldine Anna von Koschembahr (1827-1883), referred to as “Anna”; the younger was Isidore Mathilde Helene von Koschembahr (1833-1887), familiarly called “Isidore.” Though they were six years apart, both got married the same year in 1859. Anna married Adolph von Blankensee (1812-1871) (Figures 15a-b), while Isidore wed Major Otto von Heugel (1826-1871). (Figures 16a-b)
Their respective husbands fought in the Franco-Prussian War, also known as the Franco-German War of 1870-1871. Both died during this conflict in France within weeks of one another. Adolph von Blankensee died from Typhus on the 11th of January 1871, while his brother-in-law Otto von Heugel died on the 29th of January 1871 in a place called La-Queue-en-Brie (Figures 17a-b), a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris. Following their husbands’ deaths, the widows apparently lived together in the family manor in Kesselbach until their deaths. Both are recorded as having died in Görlitz, the largest nearby town.
The only known depiction of Anna von Koschembahr is an endearing painting from ca. 1830 standing alongside her younger brother Leopold. (Figure 18) The original of this painting is owned by the descendants of Kurt’s recently deceased uncle, Clemens von Koschembahr, Chistopher von Koschembahr’s uncle. In Post 75, I wrote about this Biedermeier-style painting because my third cousin, Agnes Stieda, née Vogel, owns a replica of this painting. (Figure 19) How a copy of this painting came to be made is unknown.
No images are known of Isidore. However, given the extensive von Koschembahr family, it is probable that a likeness of her survives among the family’s ephemera. It is my hope that one of her von Koschembahr descendants may stumble upon my blog and scrutinize their family photos.
The history of the von Koschembahr manor house is unknown. Discovery of the so-called “grundbuch,” the German land register that records property ownership and other details that would have been maintained by a special division of the local court, would provide details on the castle’s construction and ownership. Whether the grundbuch survived the devastation of WWII is also unknown.
I can only surmise what happened to the manor house following Isidore’s death in 1887. Neither Anna or Isidore had any children, However, a younger von Koschembahr sibling, Erich Wilhelm Adolf von Koschembahr (1836-1890), had two daughters, and one may have inherited the property. I would posit the estate continued to be owned by Anna and Isidore’s descendants since titled families tended to own multiple estates around the country. Regardless of what happened to the property following the death of the two widows, there can be no doubt the family lost ownership of the estate at the end of WWII when the family fled the area as the Russians were approaching.
Pictures of the manor house, including the one on Wikipedia, show the shell of the castle still in restorable condition. These pictures, probably taken in the last 10-15 years, suggest that someone lived in and maintained the property until shortly before then. I strongly suspect I’ll eventually write a postscript to this post as I learn more about the history of the von Koschembahr manor house.
The dilapidated remains of the von Koschembahr castle in Żarki Średnie holds a particular appeal to me as a retired archaeologist. Because most historic era remains found throughout the United States are not related to titled families or known individuals and are assuredly not connected to my family, learning of a surviving structure that is piques my interest. I’ll leave it at that.