Ziegler Castle

Besides the Upper Castle and the Hammerschloss as former noble residences, there is also the Zieglerschloss, the youngest of the three castles in Schmidmühlen. It was built in 1757, modeled after a French country château. The Zieglerschloss – and this distinguishes it from all other castles in the municipality of Schmidmühlen – was not a noble residence. It was built by Johann Georg Felsner, who was born on December 17, 1727, as the fourth of six children. At that time, Schmidmühlen was a flourishing place. Situated on a waterway with its own inland port and as a crossroads of important trade routes, the town had an outstanding significance for its time. Above all, hop cultivation, the hammer mill, customs revenues, and many small and medium-sized craft businesses ensured relative prosperity for centuries. At that time, the market also had its own brickworks, which was located in the area of today's Zieglerschloss.

Inseparably linked with the Zieglerschloss itself is its builder, Johann Georg Felsner. With his way of life and the construction of the Zieglerschloss, he made history. The Felsner family came from Kastl. The brickmaker Johann Felsner moved from Kastl to Schmidmühlen in 1668. The reason for this was his marriage to Anna Johann Kolb, the daughter of a Schmidmühlen brewer. He died in 1718. His son Balthasar (born in 1697 as the fourth of eight children) married Elisabeth Riedhammer, a citizen's daughter. From this marriage came Johann Georg, the later builder of the castle. His godfather was the papermaker Georg Mittelstraßer from the Vischbach paper mill. The brickworks in Schmidmühlen was originally municipal property. In 1687, the market sold it to Lorenz Hammer from Velburg. In 1692, Felsner, who had moved from Kastl, acquired the property from him, which apparently did not yet include a residential house. The deed of purchase mentions permission to build one. In 1721, Johann Felsner's widow Anna transferred the brick kiln with its "appurtenances" to her son Balthasar, Johann Georg's father. When the property came into his possession has not yet been determined. At the age of 16, Felsner left his hometown of Schmidmühlen, traveled through half of Europe, but especially France. There he learned the art of making snuff boxes. These boxes were at that time an indispensable item for everyone. In 1757, almost 30 years old, he returned to Schmidmühlen, his head full of plans and ideas. In the same year, he began the construction of the "Zieglerschloss". The pure construction costs amounted to 18,000 guilders, an extraordinarily high sum for that time. The Zieglerschloss was then a true ornament, until it was largely destroyed by a major fire. Nothing remained of the building but the masonry.

Snuff boxes were never made in the castle itself. The factory stood in Brunnlett. Here, Felsner initially employed about 50 workers, later about 20. This large number of employees shows how significant this craft business was at the time. The production of Felsner's snuff boxes was carried out using a secret method he had brought from France. Thanks to his diligence and versatility, the Schmidmühlen production developed into considerable competition for his French teachers. This prompted one of them to send Felsner a box. Suspecting nothing good, he had the shipment opened from the bottom by a locksmith. And that was good, because it contained several loaded pistols that would have discharged when the lid was opened. For the castle itself, a catastrophe occurred on November 26, 1896: it was ravaged by a major fire. Since, according to old accounts, the castle was burning at all corners and ends, arson was suspected. The cause of the fire could never be clarified, even by police investigations. The Bayerischer Volksbote reported in its issue of December 3, 1896: "On the 26th of last month, at 5:30 in the morning, this castle, an ornament of the market, became a prey to the flames. It burned at almost the same time at all corners and ends, which strongly suggests arson. Nothing remained of the beautiful building but the masonry." The glow of the fire itself could be seen far up into the Lauterachtal.

But back to Johann Georg Felsner. His life, living, and work in Schmidmühlen were marked by a deep enmity between him and the market community. This opened a series of lawsuits against him, his construction, and his business. As early as 1796, a district court ruling prohibited the use of the cesspits of his new building, making it uninhabitable. From then on, he lived in Brunnlett (house no. 88). Johann Georg Felsner married twice: in 1779 he married the baker's daughter Maria Regina Riedhammer (she died in childbed in 1783), ten years after her death, on July 23, 1793, Margareta Weigl. But family happiness was very short-lived. A few weeks later, Johann Georg Felsner died on September 7, 1793, at the age of 66.

Nothing remained of his once considerable fortune. The Zieglerschloss with its brick kiln and brick oven was acquired by Felsner's brother-in-law, Leonhard Hofmann. Felsner's successor probably acquired the means for this by selling the well-guarded company secret in 1794 to a leather manufacturer Fleischmann from Amberg, who moved the production there and sold about 24,000 snuff boxes annually with great profit for about 20 years. This sale also marked the end of the Felsner family's era and the profitable snuff box production in Schmidmühlen. The Zieglerschloss itself has been in private family ownership for four generations now.