Note: In this post I provide a short historical overview and visual sketch of Schloss Kamenz [Kamieniec Ząbkowicki Palace], the estate in Silesia where my third cousin’s father, Dr. Hans Vogel, worked for the von Preußen family during the Nazi Era. I also briefly touch on geopolitical factors that make it improbable the family will ever be able to reclaim the castle.
Related Posts:
POST 133: “THE BUTCHER OF PRAGUE,” THE STORY BEHIND A UNIQUE PHOTO OF REINHARD HEYDRICH (PART I)
POST 133—THE BUTCHER OF PRAGUE, THE STORY BEHIND A UNIQUE PHOTO OF REINHARD HEYDRICH (PART II)
POST 134: SUSE VOGEL’S CHANCE ENCOUNTER WITH THE “BUTCHER OF PRAGUE’S” SON, HEIDER HEYDRICH
The von Preußen and Bruck families are not related in any but an “Adam and Evish” sort of way though both have affiliations with Silesia, now mostly located in Poland. The filament of a familial connection passes through my third cousin Agnes Stieda née Vogel whose father Dr. Hans Vogel (Figure 1) was employed by Friedrich Heinrich von Preußen (1874-1940) (Figure 2) and his second cousin Waldemar von Preußen (1889-1945) (Figure 3) following Friedrich’s death in 1940. While employed by the von Preußen family, Dr. Vogel was tasked with archiving the vast collection of art and historical treasures stored at the castle in Kamenz. (Figure 4) Not only did the family employ Hans, but they also provided a measure of protection for his Jewish wife Suse and mischling half-Jewish daughter Agnes during the Nazi Era. For this reason, to this day the family is held in high esteem by the Stiedas.
After a series of blog posts dealing with Reinhard Heydrich, one of the evilest characters in a Nazi panoply full of them, I need to step away from this emotionally draining subject to tackle a lighthearted topic. Ergo, this pictorial essay and a brief history on Schloss Kamenz [Kamieniec Ząbkowicki Palace] that Peter Albrecht von Preußen’s ancestors once owned in Kamenz, Germany [today: Kamieniec Ząbkowicki, Poland].
One side comment before I proceed. Peter Albrecht has been exceptionally gracious and helpful in tracking down and sending me an enormous amount of illustrative and research matter, related not only to his von Preußen ancestors but also to my Bruck family. For example, as it relates to my antecedents, Peter uncovered two wills archived in Opole, Poland that I ordered that may possibly be related to my great-great-grandfather, Samuel Bruck (1808-1863), the first-generation owner of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel in Ratibor [today: Raciborz, Poland]. Though I’ve had them translated and interpreted by my fourth cousin, they are challenging in the extreme to make sense of because they are handwritten in Fraktur calligraphy and never give a precise date of birth of the testator, a man named Samuel Bruck but likely not my ancestor. That said, Peter has uncovered other materials that are definitively related to “my” Samuel Bruck, and, though somewhat dry, will form the basis of a future blog post as I discuss recent intriguing findings about him.
As I proceed to give readers a pictorial sketch of Schloss Kamenz [Kamieniec Ząbkowicki Palace], let me start by providing an historical overview of the castle. The first owner was Princess Marianne of the Netherlands (1810-1883) (Figure 5) who in 1838 commissioned the most prominent German architect of the time, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, to design the structure. Noted for his neo-Classical and neo-Gothic buildings, most famously found in and around Berlin, Schinkel created a monumental palace in the form of a medieval castle.
Princess Marianne married Peter Albrecht’s great-great-great-grandfather, Friedrich Heinrich Albrecht (FHA) von Preußen (1809-1872) (Figure 6) in 1830 (Figure 7), but by 1848 the couple were in the process of getting divorced, so construction on the castle was halted until 1853 and not completed until 1872, the year FHA died. The following year their eldest son, Friedrich Wilhelm Nicholas Albrecht (NA) von Preußen (1837-1906) (Figure 8), got married to Princess Marie of Saxe-Altenburg (1854-1898) (Figure 9), so Princess Marianne gifted them the castle. Upon NA’s death, the castle was inherited by the eldest son, Friedrich Heinrich (FH) von Preußen (1874-1940), the homosexual scion who has been mentioned multiple times in the previous three posts.
Aware that he was dying of stomach cancer and having no surviving siblings and no children of his own, FH sold castle Kamenz along with the nearby “castle” in Seitenberg [today: Stronie Śląskie, Poland] (Figure 10), and all its belongings to his second cousin, Waldemar von Preußen (1889-1945), nephew of Germany’s last Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II. (Figure 11) Upon FH’s death, Prince Waldemar transferred the cash to FH’s trust to be divided equally in five parts to FH’s nephew, Friedrich Karl Erich Albrecht (EA) von Preußen (1901-1976) (Figure 12), and four nieces, the daughters of FH’s youngest brother, Friedrich Wilhelm (FW) von Preußen (1880-1925). (Figure 13)
Prince Waldemar fled castle Kamenz as the Red Army was approaching in 1945, dying in Tutzing, Bavaria on May 2nd, six days before the official end of World War II in Europe. Obviously, the castle was abandoned along with all the artworks and belongings. Relocated Poles looted the castle and Russians burned and pillaged it. According to Peter Albrecht, however, Polish citizens report that 14 to 17 railroad cargo trains worth of movables were taken by the Russians and shipped to an unknown destination. The marble used for exterior construction was salvaged to construct the Congress Hall at the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw.
Following Prince Waldemar’s death, rights to the castle that he obviously no longer had physical control over passed to his younger brother, Sigismund von Preußen (1896-1978) (Figure 14), then in turn to his son Alfred Friedrich Ernst Heinrich Conrad von Preußen (1924–2013), “Uncle Alfred” (Figure 15) as he is known to Peter Albrecht. Shortly before Prince Alfred’s death in 2013, he transferred all rights to the estate to Peter including the contents of the 14 to 17 railroad cargo trains, should they materialize.
A brief word on an intriguing aside. Schloss Kamenz or Kamieniec Ząbkowicki Palace, as it is currently known, is situated within Poland. In a minor way, it figured into the negotiations leading to the eventual reunification of Germany in 1989. The “Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany,” or the “Two Plus Four Agreement,” is the international agreement that allowed for the reunification of Germany in the 1990s. The reference to “Two Plus Four” means that the agreement was negotiated between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Germany Democratic Republic (GDR), along with the Four Powers which had occupied Germany at the end of World War II, namely, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This treaty replaced the Potsdam Agreement, and involved the Four Powers renouncing all rights they held in Germany, allowing Germany to become fully sovereign the following year.
As I discussed in Post 132, the “provisional border” between Poland and Germany following World War II was known as the Oder-Neisse line. This partition meant that most of Germany’s former eastern provinces, including East Prussia and most of Silesia as well as the eastern parts of Brandenburg and Pomerania, including Danzig, were awarded to Poland and the Soviet Union. (Figure 16) The German populations of these areas either fled, as in the case of Peter Albrecht’s ancestors, or were expelled. The GDR accepted the border in 1950, but the Federal Republic of Germany always demurred considering it as provisional, pending a finalized peace settlement. However, as a condition of the Final Settlement, East and West Germany agreed to the existing border with Poland, with the renunciation and exclusion of any other territorial claims, in other words Germany’s former eastern provinces.
The biggest issue for the Soviet Union at the time the “Two Plus Four Agreement” was being negotiated was Germany’s former territory of East Prussia, which today includes the Kaliningrad Oblast, the westernmost part of Russia. The other indirect issue for the Soviets was Poland which was regarded as a satellite state in the Soviet sphere of influence but was never part of the Soviet Union. Because the Oder-Neisse line was ultimately upheld as the border between the reunified Germany and Poland, any possibility that Peter’s family could make clams on Schloss Kamenz was obviated.
This was true at least until Poland joined the European Union (EU) in 2004. Peter’s family could now potentially make a claim for return of the castle. However, because of the exorbitant cost for the reconstruction of the castle, estimated at well north of $300 million, they have not yet done so. To date, the EU has already provided the city of Kamieniec Ząbkowicki €750,000 (more than $800,000) to restore the mausoleum and €5 million ($5,362,000) to fix the roof and the small copper clad spires atop the four corner towers. If the Polish government were to return the castle, they would do so in “as is” condition and the family would be compelled to reimburse the EU for all the work done to date.
The possibility exists, nonetheless, that Peter could make a claim for any of the castle’s goods secreted in the Soviet Union should they ever resurface.
Much of the information on castle Kamenz presented below is derived from personal communication with Peter. While there are multiple features that are part of the castle or grace the gardens surrounding Schloss Kamenz, I will discuss only two, the boiler house and the mausoleum. As previously mentioned, Nicholas Albrecht received the castle from his mother in 1873 upon his marriage, and in 1883 he started to build a large steam boiler house. (Figure 17) The conversion from coal to steam heat took place at this time, although the castle still had no sanitary installations.
Princess Marie of Saxe-Altenburg, married to Nicholas Albrecht, passed away unexpectedly in 1898 at the age of 44. Peter thinks the mausoleum on the grounds of Schloss Kamenz was built soon after her death; the photo of the mausoleum dates to 1899. (Figure 18) By the time the castle was abandoned at the end of World War II (Figures 19), five members of the von Preußen family had been entombed. (Figure 20) These included Princess Marie, Nicholas Albrecht, and their three sons, Friedrich Heinrich (1874-1940), Joachim Albrecht (1876-1939) (Figure 21), and Friedrich Wilhelm (1880-1925).
Upon the arrival of relocated Poles to the area of Schloss Kamenz the bodies in the mausoleum were disinterred and defiled, and reportedly hung from trees. (Figure 22) Before they could be set ablaze, however, some virtuous Polish citizen calmed the rioters and reburied the bodies, carefully marking their locations on a map. Before this concerned citizen died, he gave his map to the President of the local historical society, and in 2017, the City of Kamenz and the Catholic Church of Poland exhumed the graves and held a funeral service at the reconsecrated mausoleum. (Figures 23-24)
According to what Peter reports, the European Union has provided funding for the eventual restoration of Castle Kamenz to its full glory. To date only the mausoleum and part of the main hall of the castle proper have been renovated. (Figures 25-32)
In closing, I understand if readers are overwhelmed by the von Preußen family tree. My personal interest is trying to understand how the Bruck’s Hotel in Ratibor [today: Racibórz. Poland] owned by three generations of my family, obtained a “franchise” to use the “Prinz von Preußen” surname. This entails nailing down exactly when the building that eventually became the Bruck’s Hotel was built, whether its construction preceded or coincided with my family’s acquisition of the establishment, and, if it preceded it, when exactly my family purchased it. I’m uncertain whether historic documents survive to answer these questions. And, finally, because of our collaboration, Peter (Figure 33) has now found some not-so-distant ancestors that hail from Ratibor, suggesting our families may have had business dealings long ago. So, while this post may be of limited interest to many readers, I am pursuing it to better understand my family’s deep-seated connection to Ratibor and Silesia.
