Veste Oberhaus

The fortress was built in 1219 by Ulrich II, the first prince-bishop of Passau, at the location of a previously existing chapel dedicated to St. George.

The intention was to express the military strength of the bishopric and support the bishop's status as an elector of the Holy Roman Empire, granted in 1217, and also to protect against both external enemies and internal threats such as those citizens of Passau who wished to acquire the independent status of a free imperial city.

Napoleon made use of the fortress during his campaign against Austria, placing it under the control of his allies the Bavarians as a border outpost, but in 1805 it surrendered to the Austrian army.

After the Congress of Vienna the area was controlled by Bavaria and for almost a century, until 1918, the fortress served an additional purpose as a state and military prison.

The main gate, the Ravelintor, bears the arms of Cardinal Johann Philipp von Lamberg and was built in 1703.

[4] The gate tower at this point bears the arms of Prince Bishop Leonhard von Laiming dated 1440.

The church of St. George in the inner courtyard has early and high Gothic frescoes and predates the fortress; it was renovated in Baroque style.

The inaugural performance was of a work by Hans Baumann honoring "farmers of the border marches" and entitled Für unsere Treue gibt es keinen Tod (for our loyalty there is no death), with a cast of 1,600.

In 1937 Eberhard Wolfgang Möller's Frankenburger Würfelspiel was performed; this concerned an event that happened not far away from Passau, and was to have been repeated annually, but political objections by the Austrians prevented it.

[8] In July 1940, when Rüdiger von Bechelaren, the latest play by Hans Baumann, was staged, 2,000 Hitler Youth were integrated.

[12] In February 1939, Margarethe Schneider-Reichel called all Orts-, Zellen- and Block-Frauenschaftsleiterinnen from the city and the Passau district to a weekend seminar at Veste Oberhaus.