Qualla: Ksiaz Castle

Ksiaz Castle: Introduction

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jar.ciurus, CC BY-SA 3.0 pl. Beneath the floors of Ksiaz Castle, somewhere in the warren of tunnels the Nazis began carving in 1943, parts of the complex have never been fully mapped. Project Riese - 'Giant' - was the SS code name for an enormous underground construction effort in the Owl Mountains, and Ksiaz was its showpiece. Forced laborers and inmates from the Gross-Rosen subcamp called Furstenstein blasted galleries directly under the medieval foundations, removing tons of rock from a building that was already, above ground, the third-largest castle in Poland. What the tunnels were meant to be - a Hitler headquarters, a V-weapon factory, a redoubt - the SS never wrote down clearly enough to settle. What they cost in human lives is better documented. The castle above is now a tourist attraction. Some of the tunnels are open for guided tours. Others are still off-limits, and the Polish Academy of Sciences uses one branch for gravimeter measurements where vibration is measured in millionths of a gravitational g.

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Image: Jar.ciurus | CC BY-SA 3.0 pl

Ksiaz Castle: A Duke's Eyrie

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Scotch Mist, CC BY-SA 4.0. The first fortress on this rock above the Pelcznica river was destroyed by Bohemian forces in 1263. A generation later, the Silesian duke Bolko I the Strict began a new castle here between 1288 and 1292, taking up residence and adding 'Lord of Ksiaz' to his titles. The site is dr...

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Image: Scotch Mist | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ksiaz Castle: The Hochbergs and Daisy

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Agatstone, CC BY-SA 3.0. From 1509 the castle belonged to the Hochberg family, who held it for more than four centuries. They expanded it relentlessly: the Baroque additions in the early 18th century, the neo-Gothic tower in the 19th, the great east wing in the early 20th. By 1909 Ksiaz contained over 40...

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Image: Agatstone | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ksiaz Castle: Project Riese

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Yarl, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1941 the Nazi state effectively confiscated Ksiaz from the Hochbergs. By 1943 the SS had begun the Project Riese excavations beneath it. The forced laborers who did the work were prisoners of the Furstenstein subcamp of Gross-Rosen - among them Italian, Polish, Hungarian, and ...

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Image: Yarl | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ksiaz Castle: Restoration and the Coin

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jacek Halicki, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Polish state took over Ksiaz after the war and slowly began restoring it. The interiors had to be reconstructed almost from photographs - the Maximilian Hall, the Baroque Salon, the Chinese Room - using craftspeople whose grandfathers had worked the original surfaces. A 2014 ...

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Image: Jacek Halicki | CC BY-SA 4.0