They listened to interesting lectures on the topic of "Castles, palaces and manor houses: where the nobility sat in Salzgitter". The historic building's Fürstensaal, which was filled to capacity, provided the perfect backdrop.

Further lectures will follow over the next few years as part of the three-year conference series.

The audience at the first event ranged in age from 16 to 90. The seven expert presentations gave them a broad insight into the general development of the European castle in the early and high Middle Ages as well as the situation in the northern Harz foreland with a focus on the current urban area of Salzgitter.

After a welcoming address by the first mayor Stefan Klein, museum director Arne Homann and Dr. Heiko Laß (German Castle Association) introduced the event. In the first two presentations, "The castle before the castle" (Museum Director Arne Homann) and "Early and high medieval development of castles" (Dr. Christian Karl Frey/Museum Burg Brome), the audience learned about the various types of fortifications built by humans since the Neolithic Age - and the development of the medieval castle.

After the lunch break, the focus was on "The Northern Harz Foreland - A Castle Landscape of the 10th-12th Century". Dr. Markus C. Blaich (Lower Saxony State Office for the Preservation of Monuments) took the audience on a tour of some particularly impressive examples in the region. He was followed by Dr. Gudrun Pischke (Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Südniedersächsische Heimatforschung), who is well-known in Salzgitter. In her lecture "Of high medieval noblemen and ministerials in later Salzgitter", she showed how complex the social situation was in the nobility of the time and how difficult - but also rewarding - it is today to reconstruct the social structures of the time.

Case studies from the Salzgitter region were then on the agenda. Reports were given on the results of archaeological investigations into the early medieval ramparts of Steterburg Castle (Tobias Uhlig, District Archaeologist Braunschweig), the early days of Lichtenberg Castle - including a new reconstruction (Christoph Lücke, Monument Conservator, City of Salzgitter) - and the pilgrimage church in Engerode, which focused on the question: "(K)ein umgebauter Wohnturm?" (Arne Homann, Salder Castle Municipal Museum).

After each block of lectures, there was a lively and lengthy discussion, with the audience and speakers exchanging ideas intensively so that no questions remained unanswered at the end. It was clear that the two follow-up events in 2025 and 2026 are eagerly awaited.