Muffendorf Castle

The Kommende Muffendorf was a branch of the Teutonic Order in Muffendorf, today a district of the Bonn city district of Bad Godesberg. The associated baroque castle or palace, built in the mid-18th century, is a listed building.

The former Kommende Muffendorf is located on a site sloping from west to east at 84 m above sea level on the east side of Muffendorfer Hauptstraße (house numbers 65–89) and on the south side of the street An der Kommende. The associated park extends south to Benngasse and east to the houses on the western edge of Deutschherrenstraße.

Originally a Carolingian royal villa, part of this property passed to the Cologne church. Archbishop Anno II granted this estate to the Siegburg monastery he founded. Abbot Gottfried von Siegburg, after the feudal lord Dietrich von Muffendorf had renounced it, gave a considerable part of the property in 1254 to the Kommende of the Teutonic Order in Ramersdorf. Because the Order's possessions grew strongly, the Kommende Ramersdorf sold the Muffendorf property in 1304 to the Ballei Koblenz. This then founded its own Kommende in Muffendorf.

In the 15th century, the Kommende experienced an existential crisis. A large part of the property, including the Kommende building, had to be sold in 1458 to the Godesberg Birgittine monastery Marienforst. In 1496, the Kommende was again entirely in the possession of the Teutonic Order. A renewed decline occurred in the 17th century. Temporarily there was no longer a resident Komtur. The buildings fell into disrepair and the property was managed by the Kommende Waldbreitbach.

In 1713, Damian Casimir von Clodt zu Ehrenberg was again appointed Komtur. His successor, Baron von Harff, began the construction of a new two-story Kommende house in the Baroque style. Komtur Karl Adolf Freiherr von Greiffenklau also contributed to the expansion. A chapel and a servant's house were also newly built.

During the French occupation (1794–1815), the Kommende was secularized and became a state domain. Later, the property was sold to a Cologne merchant, who in turn sold it to Karl Joseph von Fürstenberg. He had the Kommende rebuilt and extended around 1860 in the Neo-Gothic style. The buildings of the Kommende that have been preserved to this day, the main building (palace) and the farm building (coach house), date back to this renovation phase.

In 1896, the buildings were sold to Joseph Mayer (1857–1914), who had the Neo-Gothic elements removed and the Baroque forms restored. In 1890, Joseph Mayer had married Pauline Elisabeth née Pfeifer (1869–1953), daughter of the Cologne entrepreneur Valentin Pfeifer, who participated in the purchase and also took up residence there in summer with his wife. Both couples are buried in Muffendorf. The grave site is maintained by the St. Martin parish.

Even before the death of the last owner, the Kingdom of Belgium acquired the Kommende in 1952 to establish the residence of its ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany at the seat of government in Bonn (→ Embassy of the Kingdom of Belgium (Bonn)). For this purpose, renovations were carried out until 1954 under the direction of the Bonn architect Wilhelm Denninger. In the course of the relocation of the seat of government, the Belgian embassy moved to Berlin in 1999. The Kommende Muffendorf now stood empty. In 2006, after an unsuccessful attempt to sell it, Belgium was able to sell it with a total area of 2.3 hectares to a Cologne real estate developer, who had the property converted into an upscale residential complex in 2007/08. The historic buildings of the Kommende (palace and coach house) were renovated and divided into condominiums. In the 1.6-hectare park, two new residential buildings with further condominiums (thus a total of 24) were built in a U-shaped – overall courtyard-shaped – arrangement to the palace and coach house, which are oriented towards the baroque forms of the old stock.