Wolfsburg Castle The Wolfsburg is medieval lowland and water castle in North Germany that was first mentioned in the records in 1302 , but has since been turned into a Renaissance " schloss " or palace . It is located in eastern Lower Saxony in the town of Wolfsburg named after it and in whose possession it has been since 1961 . The Wolfsburg developed from a tower house on the River Aller into a water castle with the character of a fortification . In the 17th century it was turned into a representative , but nevertheless defensible palace that was the northernmost example of the Weser Renaissance style . Its founder and builder was the noble family of von Bartensleben . After their line died out in 1742 the Wolfsburg was inherited by the counts of Schulenburg . Name . The name " Wolfsburg " ( literally " Wolf Castle " ) does not indicate that the region of the Vorsfelder Werder in which the castle is located had a large number of wolves , even though there were certainly wolves in the nearby wet meadows of the Drömling . The wolf that gave its name to the castle is a heraldic beast on the coat of arms of the von Bartensleben family who built the edifice . Their coat of arms comprises a leaping wolf above two sheaves of corn . The family brought the name " wolf " with them , because they can be traced back to 1188 when they were still living at Bartensleben Castle in the village of Bartensleben about 40 kilometres to the south . In the 20th century , the city built here in 1938 was named after Wolfsburg Castle . Initially it was called the " Stadt des KdF - Wagen s " ( " Town of the Strength through Joy Car " ) because of the industrial plant established to build the Volkswagen . After the end of the Second World War , the city council decided to rename the city Wolfsburg on 25 May 1945 . Design . Main structure . Since the 17th century the castle has been a four - sided , solid building surrounding an inner courtyard . The main body of the castle thus has four wings , which are named after the points of the compass . The upper outline of the castle with its finely decorated cross - gables , lucarne s and pointed roofs of the wall tower s form a contrast with the fortification - like walls . Entrance . Outsize stone figures on horseback decorate the palace entrance with its round arch . Above the portal there are stone shields with the coat of arms of the Bartenslebens , chimera ( " Neidköpfe " ) and equestrian figures . The portal architecture , like the terrace with its great " perron " on the park side , is a 19th century addition . Bergfried . The bergfried is integrated as an element of the west wing into the main structure and is recognisable as such by its lack of decoration and windows . The tower has an area of 9 x 9 metres , a height of around 23 metres and wall thickness of up to 3 metres . It is the oldest part of the whole site and its origins may go back to the 13th century . Towers . In the internal corners of the courtyard there are three other towers with staircases that enable the individual floors to be accessed . These are the Watchman ' s Tower ( " Hausmannsturm " ) which at around 30 metres is the highest , the Owl Tower ( " Uhlenturm " ) and the hexagonal " Wendelstein " tower with its circular staircase . They were built in the 16th century as the castle was converted into a palace . Wings . The north and south wings from the 16th century were mainly used for residential purposes . The roughly 25 metre high east wing was completed at the beginning of the 17th century . With its splendid decorative shapes in the Weser Renaissance style , it was very much an ostentatious reception building . On the ground floor there is a 30 metre long and 9 metre wide hall , the present Garden Hall ( " Gartensaal " ) . Adjacent to it is a smaller hall the Chamber Room ( " Kaminzimmer " ) and the " Gerichtlaube " ( district office ) . From the inner courtyard the wing shows traces of an arcade that once ran in front of it . At roof height it is surrounded by corbel s that presumably once carried a wooden wall walk . This wing of the building clearly shows how , by the end of the 16th century , the power of the von Bartenslebens was visibly demonstrated through their architecture . History . Foundation . The reason for the construction of the " Wolfsburg " was the enfeoffment of land in the area of the present - day city of Wolfsburg to the noble family of von Bartensleben in the 13th century . These knights also watched over the trade routes where they crossed the River Aller and that entailed the construction of a fortification to protect their lordship . The first definite record of the castle was in 1302 where it is referred to as the " Wluesborch " . The document is made out by the four brothers : Borchard , Günzel , Günter and Werner von Bartensleben . They were a " ministerialis " family ( unfree knights ) , who came from the village of Bartensleben near Helmstedt . Their family members appeared at that time in the region , including in 1288 at the castle in Vorsfelde . In addition there is another record dating to 1135 , but it is not clear whether this refers to the Wolfsburg or a predecessor castle . Emperor Lothar III then awarded the newly founded Benedictine abbey of " Kaiserdom Königslutter " with diversified estates , including a " Wulvosburg " , that is named in connexion with the village of " Käsdorf " . Middle Ages and Early Modern Period . During the Middle Ages the castle was not an enclosed site , but consisted of the bergfried and an attached building , the Old House ( " Altes Haus " ) in the present west wing . The site was a strong fortification of considerable strategic importance . Later it was even equipped with cannon , for according to a 1437 document the number of guns was to be increased by 10 pieces in the event of war . According to this record , there were only attacks on the castle during the feud of the von Bartenslebens against Duke Otto of Lüneburg in 1464 , whereby it was intended to be largely demolished ( " mehrentheils demoliret worden seyn " ) . The Wolfsburg emerged from the Thirty Years ' War as one of the few aristocratic castles that remained undestroyed . It was almost continuously garrisoned by troops of the warring parties , the last being the Swedes . The lords of Brunswick and Magdeburg forced their withdrawal came in 1650 by having the castellans have the fortifications slighted . Six years later the von Bartenslebens had the fortifications rebuilt because they wanted to retain the military character of the castle . Construction history . Medieval castle . In the early stages around 1300 the Wolfsburg only had a stone tower house ( " Wohnturm " ) on the Aller , whose precursor may have been a wooden watchtower in the style of a lowland motte . The present , roughly 23 metre high tower , later designated as the bergfried , is the oldest surviving part of the present site . It was accessible halfway up by a wooden staircase or ladder that could be hauled up in the face of enemy attack . To begin with , it may have been the tower house of the von Bartenslebens themselves . Over time it did not do justice to as an aristocratic residence and domestic building , and as a consequence other buildings and fortifications were constructed . Within the later castle , the bergfried acted as a dungeon and prison . Due to its situation in the Aller valley , the castle was probably surrounded by water from the outset . Certainly until the 19th century it was protected by two moats that were fed from the nearby Aller and the Hasselbach stream . The inner moat encircled the castle itself which , together with its drawbridges , made it a water castle . The outer moat surrounded the larger outer ward ( " Vorburg " ) , a refuge place for the lord ' s subjects in time of war . In addition this area was protected by a curtain wall with defensive bastion s or " Rondellen " , against which the later domestic buildings and stables , the present coach houses ( " Remisen " ) were built . Investigations in recent times revealed that the castle was not , as previously suspected , built on piles in boggy terrain . For the most part it stands on a sandy subsoil and only rests in places on oak piles . Weser Renaissance palace . In the middle of the 15th century , a medieval castle no longer reflected the status of the von Bartenslebens . They turned the less comfortable building into a showy palace in the Weser Renaissance style with gardens and parks . Nevertheless it retained the character of a fortified water castle until 1840 , when the protective moats were filled in as the Aller river was artificially confined and controlled . In 1574 , thanks to his great fortune , Hans von Bartensleben , the Wealthy ( " der Reiche " ) , was able to begin the conversion of the castle . For this work he employed masons , stonemasons and carpenters , whom he paid . The socage rendered him by the peasants of the villages of the Vorsfelder Werder provided free manual labour as well as horses and carts . When the Bartenslebens unduly imposed on them , the farmers complained ( for example in 1600 ) to their overlord , Duke Henry Julius of Brunswick - Wolfenbüttel . From then on , socage was restricted to " only " ten hours in summer and eight hours in winter , twice a week , although travel time from the villages , which were up to 15 kilometres away , was not counted . Hans the Wealthy had the Red House ( " Rotes Haus " ) , a section of the building that had fallen into disrepair , demolished and erected in its place the present north wing with the entranceway to the palace . When he died in 1583 , his relative Günzel , his brother Günther and their uncle Jakob continued the work and built the ostentatious east wing . Then followed the south wing as the Knights ' Hall and Great Hall ( " Ritterhaus " and " Palas " ) . Not until 1620 was the palace completed in its present shape as a four - winged building with enclosed courtyard and outside dimensions of 50 x 60 metres . In converting it into a Renaissance palace , architecture and ornamentation were influenced by the Weser Renaissance style , of which the Wolfsburg is a typical example , as well as the most northeasterly one . The builders , stonemasons and sculptors who took part had also been involved in building palaces in the Weser region , for example , the Hamelin builder , Johann Edeler ( also : Johann von der Mehle ) .