Roßthal Castle

Roßthal Castle is located in the southwest of the Saxon state capital Dresden, about 6 km from the city center and 500 m northeast of the A17 motorway between the Freital district of Pesterwitz and Dresden-Naußlitz.

As early as 1628, the four-hide estate of Roßthal was handed over as a fief by the Protestant Provost of Meißen to the electoral chamberlain Ullmann and declared a knight's estate. In 1657, Roßthal Castle was built as a manor house for its owner Alexander von Krahe. In 1736, the knight's estate came into the possession of the von Nimptsch family.

During the Seven Years' War, the building was damaged and rebuilt and expanded by Carl Siegmund von Nimptsch. The tower was raised for a better view. A landscape park was created and adorned with various structures, water features, grottoes, and trick mirrors. The associated lands at that time comprised 224 hectares and were mainly cultivated by the cottagers from Neunimptsch. From this period, a small rectangular hermitage covered with a tent roof and a pointed arched park gate with a baroque grille have been preserved.

In 1852, Carl Friedrich August Krebs, Baron von Burgk, took over the Roßthal knight's estate. His family remained owners of the manor until 1945. From 1858 to 1859, Karl Moritz Haenel rebuilt Roßthal Castle and the octagonal tower in the German Renaissance style and added two new upper floors. After the Second World War, the castle temporarily housed the administration of the state-owned estates of Saxony. The state-owned horticultural estate Pesterwitz also took over the agricultural land and established a vocational school. This continues to exist today as an agriculturally oriented grammar school.