Kitzburg Castle (Walberberg)

The Kitzburg is a small manor house, surrounded by a romantic park and accessible via a straight, 500-meter-long hedge avenue. The manor house was built in 1725 and was converted to its current form in the 18th and 19th centuries. It stands on a walled, artificial island with a square floor plan, at the corners of which stand 4 small corner pavilions. The one at the southeast corner served as a house chapel. Three bridges make it possible to cross the moat. Northwest of the island is an outer bailey.

Near the present-day Kitzburg, south of the Franz-von-Kempis-Weg, ancient finds indicate the existence of a "villa rustica", a Roman estate. The current manor house of the Kitzburg stands on medieval foundations from the 13th century, as evidenced by the walls of the artificially created house island. These include fragments of the Roman aqueduct, which served as a quarry for many buildings in the Middle Ages.

Between 1350 and 1549, the Kitzburg was a fief of the Archbishop of Cologne, who appointed bailiffs there to exercise jurisdiction. These used Haus Kitzburg as their official residence, including the first verifiable lord of the castle, the bailiff Zwyffel van (Walber) Bergh. One of his successors in 1547 was a Junker Gymnych, Kyßborch.

In 1550/51, the then castle was sold to the bailiff in Brühl, a Mr. von Wulfskehl. This was Gerhard Anton von Wolfskehl, son of Gerhard von Wolfskehl, bailiff of Brühl, Deutz and Königsdorf, "gatekeeper" of the Archbishop of Cologne, and Luffardis von der Portzen. The electoral fief thus became an allodial possession.

After the estate (including 97 Morgen of arable land including a mill) came into the possession of Prince Franz Egon Fürstenberg, Bishop of Strasbourg, with a purchase agreement dated January 25, 1671, he had the present manor house renovated and the entire complex redesigned according to Italian models. The new owner henceforth called the stately estate Fürstenburg. Only from 1682, when Canon Thomas von Quentel was the owner of the castle, was it again called Kitzburg at his insistence.

Canon Johann Thomas von Quentel sold the Kitzburg to Felix Joseph von Becker on November 16, 1757. In the same year, the Kitzburg passed to Franz Peter von Becker and Maria Ursula von Herwegh. They were followed as owners by, among others, Everhard and finally Clemens von Groote. Clemens von Groote died in a hunting accident in 1905, and so his cousin Franz von Kempis inherited the Kitzburg. In 1960, his daughter Karola von Kempis took over. She had the war damage to roofs and walls caused by a bombing raid in 1942 repaired between 1962 and 1964 and renovated the castle in the old style. The main house received an exterior paint job in a color seen on an old plan from 1763. In 1973, her nephew, Franz-Raban Freiherr von Canstein, took over the Kitzburg and transferred ownership to his son Magnus Freiherr von Canstein in 2004.