Kloster Arnsburg

Arnsburg Abbey (German: Kloster Arnsburg) is a former Cistercian monastery near Lich in the Wetterau, Hesse, Germany. It was founded by monks from Eberbach Abbey in 1174. Although heavily damaged in the Thirty Years' War it was rebuilt later in the 17th century and prospered in the 18th century, when much of the abbey was rebuilt in Baroque style. Secularized in 1803 and abandoned by its monks in 1810, its buildings were given to the Grafen (Counts) von Solms-Laubach, who adapted them as their seat. The abbey church today stands as a roofless ruin, but many of the outbuildings are still intact and have seen various uses over the past 200 years. Since 1960 the abbey has also been the site of a war memorial, containing the graves of German soldiers and Soviet, Polish and Romanian prisoners-of-war/forced labourers as well as those of 87 people shot by the SS in the final days of World War II. The abbey is partially open to the public.