The Klause Kastel near Kastel-Staadt

It was the year 1833. There was great excitement in the home of the industrialist and dedicated patron of education, Jean-François Boch, as the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm had announced his visit. He was on a tour of the Prussian Rhineland and greatly admired the impressive river landscapes and their picturesque relics from times gone by. He was not alone in this: the first signs of tourism were just beginning to emerge along the Rhine and Moselle, particularly with visitors from England.

Boch ran a state-of-the-art, largely mechanised tableware factory in the old, secularised abbey in Mettlach on the Saar, and his high-quality products caused a stir as far afield as Berlin. Was that the reason why the future King Frederick William IV paid a visit to Boch?
Above all, their shared interest in history is what ensures this visit continues to resonate to this day: Boch’s historical collection included an ancient wooden chest that had once been given to him by a master baker. It contained the mortal remains of King John of Bohemia, a medieval knight-hero who had gone into the Battle of Crécy having lost his sight and had fallen there. This king came from a Luxembourgish noble family and was an ancestor of Frederick William and his wife Elisabeth of Bavaria. As his old burial place in Luxembourg had fallen victim to secularisation under Napoleon Bonaparte, it was a stroke of luck that the master baker was able to save it.
With his life story, the blind king struck a chord with the spirit of the times. The Crown Prince was closely aligned with German Romanticism and longed for a return to the ‘ideal world’ of the Middle Ages. He dreamt of a harmonious coexistence between ruler and people. No written constitution, no parliament should stand between them.
 

He decided to have a burial chapel built for his medieval ancestor, and the site was quickly chosen: a dilapidated hermit’s cell in the sandstone cliffs high above the Saar was to be rebuilt in keeping with the spirit of the times. To ensure that his romantic and political ideals were truly reflected in the building, the Crown Prince commissioned his Chief Architect, Karl Friedrich Schinkel – a great Romantic painter and architect – to draw up the plans. Furthermore, he was personally involved in the planning. There are still drawings in his own hand to prove it.

Almost 200 years have now passed. The remains of John of Bohemia now rest once more in Luxembourg City, and Germany has not been ruled by a king for a very long time. But Schinkel’s hermitage still stands on the sandstone cliffs, and its architecture ranks among the highlights of German Romanticism. Why not pay it a visit…

You’ll find another gem of German Romanticism from the reign of Frederick William in Koblenz: Stolzenfels Castle. A mural there even depicts King John of Bohemia at the Battle of Crécy.