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Concept
Itter Castle
Summary
Itter Castle (Schloss Itter) is a 19th-century castle in Itter, a village in Tyrol, Austria. In 1943, during World War II, it was turned into a Nazi prison for French VIPs. The castle was the site of an extraordinary instance of the U.S. Army, German Wehrmacht, Austrian Resistance, and the prisoners themselves fighting side-by-side against the Waffen-SS in the battle for Castle Itter in early May 1945 before the end of the war in Europe.
The hill castle is atop a knoll at the entrance to the Brixental valley, about south of Wörgl and west of Kitzbühel.
A fortress at the site was first mentioned in a 1241 deed; previous constructions may have existed since the 10th century. The Brixental originally was a possession of the Prince-Bishops of Regensburg; the castle was an administrative seat of the Counts of Ortenburg in their capacity as Vogt bailiffs, and it also served to protect the Regensburg estates from incursions undertaken by the neighbouring Archbishops of Salzburg. Nevertheless, the Brixental was acquired by Salzburg in 1312, and in 1380 the Regensburg bishops finally sold Itter to Archbishop Pilgrim II of Salzburg.
Within the Burgfrieden jurisdiction of Itter, feuds and breach of the public peace were banned, nevertheless the castle was devastated during the German Peasants' War in 1526. In the 17th century, the seat of the local administration was moved to Hopfgarten, whereafter the premises decayed. The Brixental belonged to Salzburg until it fell to the newly established Kingdom of Bavaria in 1805; the Bavarian government left the castle ruin to the Itter citizens who used it as a quarry. Upon the Final Act of the Vienna Congress, the valley became part of the Austrian, crown land of Tyrol in 1816.
The present-day building was erected on the foundations of the former one from 1878 onwards. Itter Castle was purchased as a residence in 1884 by Sophie Menter, pianist, composer, and student of Franz Liszt. Liszt himself as well as young Arthur Rubinstein stayed at the castle; Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky orchestrated one of his compositions during a visit in 1892.
Official source
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