https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alan-Heaths-History-Page/173472422695696 http://www.ceepackaging.com twitter : @ceepackaging https://www.facebook.com/pages/CEE-Packaging/135108923181666 Outstanding views of the Karkonosze mountain range from the top of Chojnik castle near Sobieszów, Jelenia Góra, Poland. The castle of Chojnik was originally erected by the order of Duke Bolko I the Strict in 1292 at the site of a former hunting lodge built by his father Bolesław II the Bald. The fortress was meant to protect the borders of Bolko's Duchy of Jawor against the menacing Wenceslaus II of Bohemia. After Bolko II had died without issue in 1368, his widow Agnes von Habsburg sold the castle to one of the courtiers, the knight Gotsche Schoff. Gotsche II Schoff modernized and expanded the castle in 1393. The castle survived the next centuries undamaged. It withstood the attacks by the Hussites in 1426 and by King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, who after his campaign of 1469 destroyed many Silesian castles. In 1529 Ulrich I von Schaffgotsch expanded the building with two forecourts, depots and a pillory, and at the end of the 16th century Renaissance modifications were carried out. During the Thirty Years' War Hans Ulrich von Schaffgotsch, Lord of Kynast - though a Protestant - after the 1620 Battle of White Mountain supported Emperor Ferdinand II and served as a general in the Imperial army under Albrecht von Wallenstein. After Wallenstein's assassination in 1634 Schaffgotsch as his liegeman was arrested, accused of high treason and executed one year later. Ferdinand II seized his property and had Kynast castle occupied by his troops, who resisted the attacks of the Swedish forces. Ferdinand III added new bastions to the castle in 1648 and finally restituted it to Christoph Leopold von Schaffgotsch, Hans Ulrich's son, in 1650. Still during the latter's lifetime, in 1675, the castle that has never been conquered burnt down completely after being struck by lightning and was not reconstructed. The comital family relocated down into the valley to the old palace of Warmbrunn (today Cieplice Śląskie-Zdrój) and the destroyed castle became a tourist attraction already in the early 18th century. It was visited by the Prussian royal family and poets like Heinrich von Kleist and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as well as Theodor Körner, who immortalized the ruin in one of his poems and made it famous all over Germany. 1822 the Schaffgotschs added a tavern and harbourage to the castle and three years later rebuilt the tower. In the 1920s the old legends were resuscitated by Waldemar Müller-Erhardt, and in the next years these folk plays were performed there. The ruins remained in the property of the Schaffgotsch dynasty until in 1945 the family was expelled. In 1964 the Polish state restored the ruins and rebuilt the mountain hut. My channel on you tube : http://www.youtube.com/alanheath is one of the most prolific from Poland. I have produced around 1,900 original films. My big interest in life is travel and history but I have also placed films on other subjects Please feel free to ask questions in the public area or to comment on things you disagree with. Sometimes there are mistakes because I speak without preparation. If I see the mistakes myself, I make this clear in the text. Please also leave a star rating! There are a number of films here on the packaging industry. This is because I am the publisher of Central and Eastern European Packaging -- http://www.ceepackaging.com - the international platform for the packaging industry in this region focusing on the latest innovations, trends, design, branding, legislation and environmental issues with in-depth profiles of major industry achievers. Most people may think packaging pretty boring but it possibly effects your life more than you really imagine! Central and Eastern European Packaging examines the packaging industry throughout this region, but in particular in the largest regional economies which are Russia, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Ukraine and Austria. That is not to say that the other countries are forgotten, they are not, but obviously there is less going on. However the fact that there are so many travel related films here is not from holidays but from business trips attending trade fairs around the region. Every packaging trade fair is a new excuse to make another film!

• published: 17 Aug 2011
• views: 1277