Rosenburg Castle

The Rosenburg is a castle-like estate in the Kessenich district of Bonn, built in 1831. From 1950 to 1973, it served as the seat of the Federal Ministry of Justice. The Rosenburg is a listed building and a protected monument.

In 1831, Professor Georg August Goldfuß, a paleontologist and zoologist at the Rhenish Friedrich-Wilhelms University, had the castle built in the Neo-Romanesque style according to a design by architect Carl Alexander Heideloff.

In 1862, the Düsseldorf silk manufacturer Gustav Schlieper acquired the Rosenburg, including its surrounding six-hectare forest, for 8,000 Thalers. In 1919 or 1920, the castle was sold to the Apostolate of Priestly and Religious Vocations, which established a training center for priests there (today Studienhaus St. Lambert). In 1938, the German Wehrmacht moved into the castle, which by then consisted of three wings after various extensions, and held officer training courses there. During World War II, the Rosenburg served as a holiday accommodation for civilian employees of the Luftwaffe. Towards the end of World War II, the medical clinic of the University of Bonn occupied the Rosenburg in 1944 as temporary quarters, before the relocation to Venusberg began in 1946.

After Bonn was designated the provisional seat of government of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, the Rosenburg was offered in January 1950 to the Federal Ministry of Justice, which had previously been housed in provisional quarters – mainly on Rheindorfer Straße in Bonn-Nord. After the removal of the medical facilities still located there, the castle was handed over to the Federal Ministry on April 1, 1950, and by June 1950, all departments could move into the new seat. The necessary renovation of the property incurred costs of 300,000 D-Mark. In 1970, the federal government acquired the Rosenburg. After the Federal Ministry of Justice moved into the newly built Kreuzbauten, the Armed Forces Office of the Bundeswehr became the new user of the property in 1973. The Federal Academy for Security Policy was based in the Rosenburg from its founding in 1992 until its relocation to Berlin in March 2004, having been chosen from the outset only as temporary accommodation. In early 2006, the last Bundeswehr employees left the building, which was then released for sale by the Federal Agency for Real Estate Tasks. Because the federal government had intended to sell the Rosenburg property since the decision to move the seat of government to Berlin in 1991, urgently needed maintenance measures were postponed.

A prospective buyer had contacted the authority and submitted a preliminary building application to the city, which envisioned the demolition of ancillary buildings of the castle and the construction of two- to four-story residential buildings, as well as a change of use for the listed main buildings for condominiums. The city administration initially rejected the application but wanted to seek solutions with the investor and had since become positive about a change of use. On July 15, 2008, the Rosenburg was handed over to the new owner, Rosenburg GbR. The intended conversion was largely completed in 2010. Since then, the Rosenburg has been used exclusively as a residential complex.