Colditz Castle

The castle's origins date back to 1046, when Emperor Henry III gifted the Colditz castle district to his wife Agnes of Poitou. Later, in 1084, Emperor Henry IV handed the complex over to his vassal Wiprecht von Groitzsch, who developed it into a castle. Under Thimo I of Colditz, the castle was elevated to imperial property in 1158. In 1309, it became the property of Margrave Frederick the Bitten by surrender. After being destroyed by the Hussites in 1429, the castle was rebuilt in 1464 by Elector Ernst, who died here in 1486. Colditz experienced its first heyday as a hunting lodge under Elector Frederick the Wise, who, after a city fire in 1504, commissioned renovations in the early Renaissance style.