The town of Pulsnitz, elevated to town status by Charles IV in 1375, has been known as the "town of gingerbread" since the 17th century. But it is not just the gingerbread that has made Pulsnitz - located between Kamenz and Radeberg north of the A4 - famous.
At the beginning of the 13th century, Pulsnitz belonged to the lordship of the noble family of Bernhardus de Polsnitz. His wife was Margarethe, daughter of the burgrave Otto von Dohna. She owned the old Pulsnitz moated castle as her dowry, which probably existed as early as 1200. After it was demolished in the 16th century, only the remains of the walls of the medieval castle remain. The lords of Pulsnitz died out in the 14th century and so in 1344 King John of Bohemia enfeoffed the burgrave Hermann von Golßen with the castle. The knight's seat that developed from it was in the hands of numerous well-known noble families.
These included the brothers Eustachius I, Hans Balthasar and Caspar von Schlieben. The Old Castle, the so-called Eustachius Building, goes back to Eustachius von Schlieben - a two-storey Renaissance building on the site of the castle, which was built on an obtuse-angled floor plan. But it was Hans Wolf von Schönberg, who took over the rule in 1580, who completed the building. Above the seating niche portal are his coat of arms and that of his wife Ursula von Carlowitz. The mansard hipped roof dates from the 18th century.
A special feature of the castle was its division, which took place in 1640 under the brothers Hans Georg and Wolf Georg von Schönberg. But Wolf von Werthern, who acquired the front castle in 1652 and the rear castle in 1656, was able to quickly remedy this situation and reunite both parts into one whole.
After the Old Palace was no longer sufficient as a representative building, the Royal Polish and Electoral Saxon Chamberlain Johann George von Maxen, who inherited Pulsnitz in 1707, built the New Palace. The New Palace is an elongated, two-storey baroque building from 1718.
In 1745 the property passed to the von Gersdorf family, who later passed it on to the von Posern family. This family expanded the park in the English style around 1860 and made some alterations to the palace in 1904. Finally, the noble family was expropriated in 1945 during the land reform.
The relocation of a lung sanatorium from Schwepnitz to Pulsnitz in 1948 laid the foundation for its continued existence as a hospital.