Dreißigacker Castle

The origins of Dreißigacker Castle date back to 1710, when Duke Ernst Ludwig I of Meiningen commissioned its construction as a hunting lodge. Between 1743 and 1785, the estate belonged to Duchess Luise Dorothea of Saxe-Gotha. In 1801, Johann Matthäus Bechstein established an educational institution for forestry and hunting here. In 1803, Duke Georg I of Saxe-Meiningen elevated this institution to the first forestry academy in what is now Thuringia, though it was dissolved in 1843 by Duke Bernhard II. From 1846, the Meiningen military used the castle, before it briefly served as a prisoner-of-war camp around 1870.