Officials from Germany

I've been getting a lot of officials from Germany, i've already got 10 since the beginning of the year. I'm sure i'll get more next week. 

 DE-2881700, sent by Iris.

Trifels Castle is a medieval castle at an elevation of 500 m (1,600 ft) near the small town of Annweiler, in the Palatinate region of southwestern Germany.

It’s one of the older castles not in ruins and it has some interesting history.  The first record of the castle was in 1081.  King Richard 1 of England (Richard the Lionheart) was imprisoned here for several weeks in 1193.

The castle was destroyed by fire caused by a lightning strike in 1602.  It was used as a refuge during the Thirty Years War until 1635.  After the bubonic plague, or Black Death, in the mid 1600s, the castle was abandoned.

The local population used the stones from the castle for building homes. By 1866, the Trifelsverein (Trifels association) was formed and stopped the theft of stones from the castle.  In 1938, the restoration of the castle began.  The original appearance of the castle was not known.  Rudolf Esterer designed the castle as it is today. The final restoration began in 1954 but wasn’t completed until the mid 1970s due to a lack of funding.  

You can wander around the castle rooms and explore.  It’s fantastic for children to discover the castle.  There are replicas of the Imperial Regalia of the Holy Roman Empire. - in: http://www.allkmc.com/castle-trifels-near-annweiler-germany/31464/

Foto: Walburg Wölk

DE-2881700, sent by sammeltante.

Vondern Castle is located in Oberhausen, North Rhine-Westphalia. It was a fief of the Counts and Dukes of Cleves and was first mentioned in the 13th century. 

 © Schöning GmbH & Co. KG 

DE-2881724, sent by Anja.

The 1st thing we see on this card is the huge and impressive Köln Cathedral but on the left side, there's another church, the Great St. Martin Church, and this time, i'll write about it. 

The Great Saint Martin Church  is a Romanesque Catholic church in Cologne. Its foundations (circa 960 AD) rest on remnants of a Roman chapel, built on what was then an island in the Rhine. The church was later transformed into a Benedictine monastery. The current buildings, including a soaring crossing tower that is a landmark of Cologne's Old Town, were erected between 1150-1250. 

The church was badly damaged in World War II, with restoration work completed in 1985. - in: wikipedia

 © type art satz & grafik

DE-2881721, sent by Birthe.
Witten is a university city in the Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis (district) in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

With almost 100,000 inhabitants, Witten is a small town, but one that is particularly attractive to nature lovers. Two thirds of the urban area consist of woodland, meadows and fields. 

Nowadays, it's hard to imagine that Witten was an industrial centre right up until the middle of the 20th century. Shaped for over 100 years by the iron, steal and coal industries, Witten is now a modern business location. The town's status has been promoted not only by the well-known university but also by two research centres which are based nearby. - in: https://www.study-in.de/en/--18211