– Dad, dad, where is this skull? – a six-year-old boy who looked like his dad asked as he entered the stone bridge leading to the main entrance to the castle. When he heard that the castle was not built to house a large skull, and that it was not called “Czachy” castle, but “Czocha”, he became sad for a moment. However, his dad quickly comforted him by saying that while exploring the underground, they would definitely come across some scares, and maybe even meet real ghosts. Then the boy brightened up visibly and marched briskly forward.
The name of the castle may indeed be surprising – although the name “Tzschocha” appeared in official documents already in 1816, it is still unknown where it came from. Some believe that it is related to the yew trees growing on the hill on which the building was built, others – that it suggests connections with the weaving industry for which the area was famous (formerly, the word “comb” was a synonym for “comb” and could refer to the processing of plant fibers). However, it is known for certain that the castle existed long before it was given this mysterious name. It was built in the 13th century at the request of the Czech king, Wacław I Przemyslid, as a border stronghold intended to protect Upper Lusatia against the invasion of Silesians (the border between the two lands ran on the Kwisa River, which still flows through the Lower Silesian and Lubusz Voivodeships) and the key trade routes of the region, including a section of the famous Via Regia, connecting Spain with Russia.
For the next few centuries, the castle was managed by burgraves from distinguished families – von Nostiz, von Seydlitz and von Üchtritz. During this time, the castle was gradually expanded and became more and more impressive. Unfortunately, as a result of a huge fire that broke out in 1793, a large part of the building was destroyed – the owners’ and servants’ living quarters, as well as the castle tower, burned down; the bridge that connected the entrance to the castle with the courtyard also collapsed, which made it difficult to extinguish the fire and prevented those inside from escaping. If the documents are to be believed, after a few hours the once impressive castle turned into a ruin, and its owner, Prince Friedrich August of Saxony, almost immediately decided to rebuild it. However, the work was slow and the castle might never have regained its former glory if not for a certain art collector who dreamed of becoming a nobleman.
Ernst Friedrich Gütschow, born in 1869, was the grandson of a baker and the son of an aspiring merchant (his father was the founder of one of the first department stores in China). In 1893, Ernst and his family left for America in search of a better fate. Once there, it turned out that he had inherited his father’s flair for trade – he got a job at the Michalitschke Bros. & Co. factory, which produced and imported tobacco. He was doing very well at work – in 1897 Gütschow became general director, although it is not known whether his promotion was due solely to his talent and diligence, or to the fact that three years earlier he had married the daughter of the factory’s co-owner, Josie Michalitaschke. The couple had four children, and in 1905 they decided to settle back in Europe. Ernst and his family settled in Dresden, where he managed the “Georg A. Jasmatzi AG” tobacco factory.
After his return, Ernst, who had enormous wealth at his disposal, decided to buy the castle. His motives remain unclear – some believe that he wanted to have a representative place where he could store and display his rich collection of works of art, others – that he dreamed of joining the country’s high-born elite. Theoretically, this was possible, because the then emperor actually granted nobility titles to people who contributed to building the power of Germany. However, the condition was to have a knight’s castle, which – as it is believed – prompted Gütschow to pay 1.5 million marks. However, it seems that even if this purchase was initially motivated by the desire for social advancement, the castle became for Ernst something more than a means to an end – namely, a house on which he spent enormous amounts of money to restore. He employed the best people for reconstruction work, including: Bodo Ebhardt, a famous German architect specializing in the revitalization of castles, the renowned painter of historical scenes Max Koch and Edward Stritt, the court painter of the emperor himself, who was commissioned to make stained glass windows.
Bodo was not only passionate about locks, to which he devoted almost his entire life, but also a lover of various technological innovations – he was responsible for installing an electronic alarm system around the castle or a system resembling today’s air conditioning. However, according to many, the greatest achievement of the brilliant architect are the secret passages located in the castle. Since not all of them have been found yet, their exact number is not known – there are 40 or even 50 crossings (a dozen or so have been discovered so far). Probably commissioned by Gütschow himself, you can find many symbols of Freemasonry in the castle – it is known that Ernst belonged to Freemasonry and even organized ceremonies and rituals that took place in his favorite room, the library. It is worth adding that this room was, and still is, impressive – the book collection numbered approximately 30,000. position, so Gütschow hired a librarian, Krystyna von Saurma, who was to supervise the collections. Other valuable artifacts, such as paintings, weapons, furniture, armor and jewelry, were located in state rooms throughout the castle.
Czocha Castle is said to be one of the most mysterious Polish castles. This is not only because of the mentioned secret passages, but also because of what happened in the castle during World War II. Although no documents have yet been found that would confirm that the Abwery cipher school operated there, it is certainly known that research on the so-called a “wonderful weapon”, and scientists and engineers working for the arms industry lived in the castle. There were weapons factories in nearby towns, such as Leśna and Miłoszów, and Hellmuth Walter, the creator of rocket engines, visited the castle. At that time, Gütschow, who had previously divided his life between the castle and Dresden, moved to Czocha permanently – presumably for security reasons, because the areas of Lower Silesia were considered calmer than the constantly bombed Dresden. It can be said that Ernst lived in his beloved castle almost until the end of his life – he left it in January 1945, and died just a year later in Bad Wildungen, Germany.
After the war, Czocha Castle fortunately did not share the history of many Lower Silesian castles and palaces, which were first deliberately devastated and later fell into ruin. In the first years, the castle’s equipment was both inventoried and systematically stolen. Most of the jewels were in a secret vault, closed with armored doors, which von Saurma showed to the Poles. Initially, the authorities were unable to open the room, so they finally entrusted it to two German craftsmen living in the area – for a fee, of course. After opening the vault, its contents were to be moved to several places, including: to the municipal office in Leśna, from where… they disappeared. Today, it is not entirely known what happened to the castle’s furnishings – there are still vivid stories about the mayor of Leśna, who allegedly loaded the treasures onto a truck and fled to an unknown direction; about the driver of another truck who was detained near Wałbrzych and who was carrying hundreds of icons, medieval documents and bronze busts of tsars. We also do not know what exactly was in Gütschow’s collection – it is said that during the Bolshevik Revolution he came into possession of the coronation insignia of Russian tsars; there are also those who believe that the librarian was in collusion with Ernst and deliberately pointed out the vault from which Gütschowa had previously taken the most valuable works and taken them with him to Germany. However, the fact that family valuables were actually left in the castle can be proven by a letter from Gütschow’s wife, which she sent to a trusted maid after leaving for Germany.
“From the cupboard where I keep my money (…) my ring from my mother, which I got from my mother, and the blue one from Mrs. Gütschow, and my thick bracelet, which is in a pink box, with twelve diamonds and a green stone. You can lock this compartment, where these jewels are, with this small key (…).
Part of the impressive collection is now in museums; it is also known that many items (most likely looted ones) ended up in private collections and appear on the black antique market from time to time. After several years of post-war turmoil, in 1952, the Czocha castle fell into the hands of the Polish People’s Army – thanks to this, the facility did not deteriorate and was not further plundered. It was transformed into a Military Recreation Center and for many years removed from maps of the area as a secret facility.
Only in 1996, 50 years after the death of the owner who was probably most in love with the castle, Ernst Gütschow, the first visitors could see the building inside. After 10 years, a hotel was built in the castle, and over time, new attractions began to appear, such as multimedia torture chambers, night tours (for adults and children) and magic workshops, during which children can play the role of little wizards and “work magic” under the supervision of an experienced witch (also called the lady running the workshop). It is not without reason that fantasy lovers compare the castle to Hogwarts, where Harry Potter himself studied. Secret passages and inaccessible rooms (the castle’s basement has not yet been discovered, but research using 3D scanning shows that there are definitely some rooms there) actually bring to mind the famous School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with its moving stairs, the Room of Requirement and the ghosts flying over the students’ heads.
And speaking of ghosts – Czocha Castle, like any self-respecting facility of this type, of course has its inhabitants who did not leave its walls even after death. The most famous is, of course, the “White Lady”, called Gertrude during her lifetime, who showed the enemy the entrance to the castle during the Hussite Wars. She was supposed to receive a bag of gold coins for her betrayal, but in the end she was caught and beheaded, and to this day her spirit cannot rest in peace and wanders around the castle, shaking the bag of gold coins. As the castle employees assured me, ghost stories are not just made-up stories – apparently many of them saw visitors from the afterlife, and some even took time off work because of it. So it seems that the promise that the father made to his son, who was disappointed with his lack of skull, may actually come true.
“Czocha Castle, guide. Stories, legends, secrets, plan” by A. Kurek-Perzyńska and M. Perzyński
“Czocha Castle. History, secrets, legends”
“Lower Silesian castles and palaces. Beautiful, dark, mysterious” by M. Gaworski