page_title: Godesburg
section_title: Location
hierarchical_section_title: Godesburg / Location
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Kupferstich "Godesberg" aus Matthäus Merians "Topographia Archiepiscopatuum Moguntinensis etc." English: Copperplate engraving of the (fortress) by Matthäus Merian, from "Topographia Archiepiscopatuum Moguntinensis etc.
context_page_description: The Godesburg is a castle in Bad Godesberg, a formerly independent part of Bonn, Germany.
  Built in the early 13th century on the Godesberg, a hill of volcanic origin, it was largely destroyed following a siege in 1583 at the start of the Cologne War. In 1891, the German emperor Wilhelm II donated the castle's ruin to the city of Bad Godesberg.
  In 1959, the ruin was rebuilt according to plans by Gottfried Böhm, to house a hotel and restaurant. Today, the restaurant is still in operation, but the hotel tract has been divided into apartments.
context_section_description: The site has a controversial history. Growing out of the nineteenth-century Heimat movement, historians speculated that in the pre-Christian era, the inhabitants probably used the peak to call to the god Wotan, the god of war, death and the hunt, and other attributes, establishing a custom that led eventually to the erection of a house of prayer on the site. They found early mention of the site in 9th century documents, and again in  the 12th century, documents continue to refer to it as Gotensberg, or Gotensperg.  first mentioned in documents from the early 8th century, was supposedly built on an old cult site and its name derived from the old Germanic Wotansberg, Woudensberg, or Gotansberg. In the 10th century, documents from the reign of Otto I in 927, and Otto II in 974, suggested that a religious community had been located on the mountain peak, thus the name Gottesberg.  From this speculation, the idea emerged that the fort itself was established on an ancient cult site.
caption: 1646 engraving of the Godesberg hill and Godesburg castle as they might have appeared before the castle's destruction
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