Cotta Castle

Cotta Castle, after multiple redesigns, is a Neo-Renaissance castle in Großcotta near Pirna in Saxon Switzerland.

The castle has its origins in an estate district founded by the Burgraves of Dohna around the year 1000. The beginnings of the castle can be traced back to an outwork mentioned in a document in 1307, which its owners, the Lords of Kospoth, expanded into a knight's estate in the 16th century. In 1661, Carl Freiherr von Friesen acquired the knight's estate and, from 1662, had a new castle built next to the church; the former estate castle became a brewery.

The Leipzig bookseller Gottfried Christoph Härtel bought the Friesian estate at auction in 1821. Under his daughter Elwine Freifrau von Leyser, née Härtel, a redesign in the Neoclassical style took place from 1833, based on designs by Woldemar Hermann. Through her second husband Eduard von Burchardi (1840), the estate came into the possession of the Bohemian Baron Bradský von Laboun in 1868.

Under Dorothea von Eschwege, another renovation of the castle in the Neo-Renaissance style took place around 1895, and a park of about three-quarters of a hectare was laid out. After her suicide on May 9, 1945, her property was distributed as land reform land to new farmers, and the castle was used by the Dresden consumer cooperative as a training restaurant.

The municipality of Cotta took over the castle, which had been vacant since 1991, in 1995. Due to the incorporation of Cotta, the municipality of Dohma has been the owner of the castle since January 1, 1998. Together with a support association, the castle is to be renovated and made usable again.

Filming for the adaptation of the novel "The Tower" also took place at Cotta Castle in 2011.