Kammer Castle

Kammer Castle is a moated castle in Schörfling am Attersee (Hauptstraße 28) in Upper Austria.

The castle, now located on a peninsula, originally on an island in the northern Attersee, is a massive, rectangular, three-story building with two low side wings enclosing a courtyard.

The first owner was Haidfalk von Chammer in 1165. From 1200, a fortified stronghold stood here, belonging to the County of Schaunberg and becoming the center of the Attergau as its fief. In 1249, the brothers Gotfrid and Haidfolch de Chamer are mentioned in a document. During the feud between Count Heinrich von Schaunberg and Duke Albrecht III of Austria, Kammer was conquered by Reinprecht von Wallsee for the Duke. In 1386, the castle had to be forcibly sold to the Habsburgs. Under the Habsburgs, Kammer was pledged several times, for example to the Geymann, the Wallsee, the Praun, or the Polheimer. In 1483, Christoph Jörger was appointed as administrator. In 1488, Tiburtius Sinzendorfer was enfeoffed with Kammer. In 1570, the lordship reverted to Emperor Maximilian II, with Kammer then being entrusted to Hektor Pirschinger for administration, from 1576 to 1581 Hans von Hohberg was the imperial administrator here.

In 1581, Emperor Rudolf II sold Kammer, along with the lordships of Kogl and Frankenburg, to Baron Johann Khevenhüller. Khevenhüller was elevated to count in 1593, and the united lordships became the "County of Frankenburg". After the temporary occupation of Upper Austria by the Bavarians (1810-1816), the Khevenhüllers sold the lordships of Kogl and Frankenburg, only Kammer remained in their possession.

The next owner was Josef Horvath von Gyorgy (1886), to whom the property was brought by Ida Szent Györy, née Countess Khevenhüller. Financially ruined, she sold the castle in 1904 to the Landes-Hypothekenanstalt, which in the same year sold it to Julius Steiner. In 1909, Sophie Gassauer was the owner. In 1925, half of the castle was acquired by the Berlin actress Eleonora von Mendelssohn and her later husband Rittmeister Emmerich von Jeszenszky, who became the sole owner after their divorce in 1936. Until the early 1990s, the castle was owned by the Jeszenszky family, who also managed the adjacent farm. In the early 1990s, ownership passed to the former Olympic champion in dressage, Sissy Max-Theurer, who renovated the castle, which was threatening to fall into disrepair. The municipality of Schörfling acquired a large part of the castle park for the creation of a public facility.