Wesel Citadel

The "Cultural Center Citadel" houses the Prussian Museum North Rhine-Westphalia, the music and art school, the city archive with a paper restoration workshop, as well as the City Museum Department Schillkasematte. At the Prussian Museum, visitors learn more about the history of the citadel itself and about the Prussian era in the Rhineland during a tour. / History of the Citadel / In 1687, the Great Elector Frederick William I ordered the construction of a citadel to strengthen the fortifications in Wesel. Initially, General Quartermaster Dupuy planned and directed the construction work on the Wesel fortress, but from 1689, the engineer F.R.Joh. de Corbin was assigned to him, taking over this task in 1690. / The citadel was to be built in the south of the city. Corbin developed several solutions for constructing a citadel linked to the city fortifications. The result of his plans was a citadel equipped with five bastions and five ravelins. The citadel was connected to the city's fortress belt in the east and west by blunt bastions. The five citadel bastions also had retrenching flanks. / The Main Gate / From 1702 to 1722, Jan de Bodt took over the supervision of the construction works after Corbin. He is credited with the construction of the main gate in the citadel, built in 1718. Presumably until the middle of the 18th century, the citadel was reinforced on its southern and eastern sides with extensive works. It is considered the largest of its kind in the Rhineland. / During the French occupation from 1805 to 1814, the French engaged in significant construction activity in and around the fortifications of the city and the citadel. They built a two-story brick building without a basement in the citadel, which still exists today - the former Barracks VIII. / From 1919 to 1920, as a result of the demilitarization of the Rhineland mandated by the Allied forces after World War I, the fortifications of the citadel were fundamentally destroyed. Some buildings survived these destructions.

Hans de Jong