The Mäuseturm and Ehrenfels Castle: Turner drew this view from a boat in 1817
‘The famous slopes of Assmannshausen’, Victor Hugo, 1842Those who wrote, painted, composed and stopped on this riverbank before you.
Castles in the stream, vines on steep slopes, the light over the Binger Loch: few landscapes have drawn as many poets, painters and musicians as the Rhine bend between Rüdesheim, Bingen and Assmannshausen. Some even mentioned our village by name, and emperors and queens stopped here too.
Eight guests who made the Rhine famous.
In August 1814 he spent a night in Rüdesheim and crossed over to Bingen for the feast of St Rochus. In his account, the guests argue about the Rhine wines, above all the ‘much-loved red of Assmannshausen’. That autumn he stayed at the Brentanohaus in Winkel.
The most famous woman of the Middle Ages founded the convent at Eibingen, above Rüdesheim, in 1165. She wrote about visions, healing and nature, and her chants are still sung today. Since 2012 she has been a saint and a Doctor of the Church.
Between 1838 and 1840 he travelled along the Rhine. In ‘Le Rhin’ he describes the Mäuseturm, Ehrenfels Castle and the Binger Loch. One evening in Bingen he watched the last rays of the sun redden ‘the famous slopes of Assmannshausen’.
On 27 August 1817, England’s painter of light sketched the Mäuseturm and Ehrenfels Castle from a boat; the result was his watercolour ‘The Binger Loch’. On the same journey he drew Assmannshausen from the left bank. The sheet is now held by Tate in London.
In 1862 he lived in Biebrich on the Rhine, where he wrote the prelude to ‘Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg’. Excursions took him to Rüdesheim, Bingen and Schloss Johannisberg.
Rhine Romanticism begins with Brentano’s journey down the river from Bingen in 1802. At the Brentanohaus in Winkel, his sister Bettina wrote her famous letters to Goethe.
One of the most influential poets around 1900, born just across the river in Bingen-Büdesheim, the son of an innkeeper and wine merchant. A museum in Bingen keeps his memory alive.
He created the Niederwald Monument high above Rüdesheim and Assmannshausen. His daughter Clara was the model for the 12.5-metre Germania. For the laying of the foundation stone in 1877, the Kaiser arrived by way of Assmannshausen.
„Les derniers rayons du soleil rougissaient au loin les fameux coteaux d’Asmanshausen.“Victor Hugo, Le Rhin, 1842
‘The last rays of the sun were reddening, far off, the famous slopes of Assmannshausen,’ Hugo wrote in Bingen. Those slopes, the Höllenberg, rise right behind our house, and in the evening light they still glow today.
Six trails that lead straight to our village.
From 1823 he lived on his country estate in Assmannshausen. Beethoven gave him permission to dedicate a string quartet to him, and in 1872 a painting from his estate became the altarpiece of the Heilig Kreuz church.
In his travel book ‘Das malerische und romantische Rheinland’ he recommends making the trip by rowing boat:
‘To travel from Rüdesheim through the Binger Loch to Assmannshausen … is magic of the most ravishing kind.’
The village itself he found ‘remarkable only for its red wine’. We would say that is a very good reason.
In Assmannshausen he completed ‘Ein Glaubensbekenntniß’ (A Confession of Faith), one of the most important collections of political poetry before 1848. Many poets and artists followed him to the village, and in 1894 it held a Freiligrath festival.
His fairy tale ‘Waldmeisters Brautfahrt’ ran to more than 50 editions. It contains the wine song ‘Das war zu Aßmannshausen’, set to music by Ferdinand Hiller (1852) and Gustav Graben-Hoffmann (1875).
At twenty he walked across the Niederwald and afterwards wrote in a letter:
‘… then on to Asmannshausen, where I had myself ferried across to see the Rheinstein.’
Today the Brahmsweg, a walking trail, recalls his rambles.
His student song ‘Die Heimkehr’ begins, of all places, right here:
‘The parson of Assmannshausen spoke:
“The world is steeped in sin …”’
The parson in the song was Justus Moyss. Adolf Jensen set it to music.
And also: Emil Rittershaus, Freiligrath’s friend and an honorary citizen of the village, praised the wine of Assmannshausen as the ‘ruby in the Rhineland’s crown’. And the Frankfurt painter Carl Theodor Reiffenstein drew Assmannshausen again and again between 1838 and 1883; his drawings are held by the Städel Museum.
Those who stopped in Assmannshausen.
The Schön family chronicle tells how, once the railway arrived in 1862, ‘even crowned heads’ came to the village. You will find some of them here, along with other great guests.
On her Rhine journey the British queen sailed aboard the yacht ‘Fairy’ from Stolzenfels to Mainz, past Assmannshausen. The boat slowed down in front of each village so that people could catch a glimpse of Her Majesty.
On the Rhine, off the villageFor the laying of the foundation stone of the Niederwald Monument, the imperial couple stepped off the train at Assmannshausen station, and the village was decked out with triumphal arches. With them were Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm and Field Marshal Moltke.
Assmannshausen stationThe Kaiser unveiled the monument, accompanied by the Crown Prince and a host of princes. Dynamite had been laid beneath the carriage road, but the fuse had grown damp overnight.
NiederwaldLocal tradition has it that Sisi spent a night in Assmannshausen, incognito as the ‘Countess of Hohenembs’, the name under which she liked to travel.
Local traditionAt Jagdschloss Niederwald, the hunting lodge above the village, the minister-presidents of the western zones met, among them Ernst Reuter and Carlo Schmid. It was here that they decided to write a ‘Basic Law’ rather than a ‘constitution’.
Jagdschloss NiederwaldOn 22 June 1990, the day after the Bundestag voted on monetary union, the Chancellor and the President met in Assmannshausen for Franco-German talks.
Assmannshausen
Read Hugo, listen to Brahms and gaze at the river that captivated them all. We will bring you a Spätburgunder from Weingut Karl Schön, the family wine estate, to go with it.
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