Castle Kętrzyn

Kętrzyn, Poland, Poland

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Castle Kętrzyn, also known as Rastenburg Castle, is a well-preserved 14th-century Brick Gothic fortress built by the Teutonic Knights around 1360-1370 in northeastern Poland's Warmian-Masurian region, replacing an earlier wooden-earth watchtower from 1329 to defend against Lithuanian raids and serve as an administrative outpost.

The compact square-plan structure features three residential wings around a courtyard without a central tower, later enclosed by high defensive walls with three 16th-century towers (two cylindrical, one quadrilateral), a moat, and facilities like a chapel, bakery, and prison, housing up to 40 knights including future Grand Masters Michael Küchmeister and Paul von Rusdorf.

Captured multiple times during conflicts like the 1345-1347 Lithuanian invasions, the Thirteen Years' War rebellion in 1454, and post-Grunwald shifts, it transitioned in 1525 to a ducal starost residence in the Duchy of Prussia, suffering fire damage in 1797 before conversion to civic uses and postwar reconstruction as the Wojciech Kętrzyński Museum showcasing regional history.