Cochem's Reichsburg Castle

There's a bad joke from the 20th Century that asks,  "Why are there so many shady trees in Paris?"

"Because German soldiers don't like marching in direct sun."

However, if you go back to the 17th Century, it was a totally different story.

King Louis XIV is perhaps best known today for the ornate interior decorating style he favored, which might make you think he was quite frivolous, but by the 1680s, King Louis XIV had made France the most powerful nation in Europe.

Suffice it to say that Louis the Great believed in the divine origin of his monarchy, which justified whatever he did.  He centralized government power and effectively ended feudalism, placating the aristocracy by bringing them to live with him in the palatial splendor that is Versailles.

Feeling himself to be ordained by God, the Sun King expected cities along the Rhine and Moselle to recognize his rule, despite the fact that most of the residents, if they thought about it at all, considered themselves Alsatian, Alamanic (German) or simply citizens of their own villages rather than French.

Many of these towns, including Cochem, refused to accept the rule of King Louis.  Being strategically located along the Moselle allowed Cochem to collect tolls, and presumably they had no interest in sharing that revenue, their wine production or other regionally generated wealth with a distant king.

When they failed to render unto Louis his tax, Louis retaliated forcefully. Winneburg Castle, despite being a fortress perched high on what for centuries had seemed to be an insurmountable hilltop location, was overwhelmed by modern French military might and burned to the ground in 1689. 

The rest of the town, bereft of its mighty castle for defense, was soon utterly destroyed.

The village rose like a phoenix, but the castle remained colorful ruins on a hilltop until 1868, when a German businessman and philanthropist, who according to local lore had enjoyed a bit too much of their delicious wine, looked up at the ruins and decided to buy the castle from the Prussian Treasury.  Louis Fréderic Jacques Ravené spent far more money building his castle than he paid for the ruins.

He did not resurrect Winneburg Castle, but rather built his neo-Gothic romantic vision of a castle, which was more in line with those described in novels like Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott than historic reality. 

He furnished Reichsburg Castle in a regal manner, hoping to make it perfect for his beautiful young wife, Therese of Kusserow.  Unfortunately, before he could complete his vision, his wife ran off with another man. 

A journalist turned novelist named Theodor Fontane wrote a popular romantic novel, "L'Adultera," based loosely on their lives.

Finally completed in 1877, Reichsburg Castle remained a private estate until the last private owner was forced to sell to the Prussian Ministry of Justice, which converted it into a Nazi law school.  Several years after the war ended, the city of Cochem had recovered enough economically to take on the task of restoring the castle.  The city purchased Reichsburg in 1978 from the post-war German state of Rheinland-Pfalz, and it is now a popular tourist attraction. 

It may not be authentic, but it is still very cool.