MMXXVI VOL21 No.893

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The Hell gate at Houska Castle, Czech Republic

A castle built in the middle of nowhere north of Prague, with no apparent practical use. Its sinister purpose attracted the attention of the Third Reich when they occupied Czechoslovakia during WWII and today, it is a tourist attraction for the same reason
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The Hell gate at Houska Castle, Czech Republic

Located 47km (30 miles) north of Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, there is a 13th century Gothic castle rising in the middle of nowhere, which seems to have no practical use.

It is not located in a strategic area nor it did serve as accommodation for the king who ordered its construction. It is not next to any trade route or road to defend and it has no fortifications.

It does not even have easy access to drinking water. There is no well, no groundwater. The nearest river is more than 6km (3.7 miles) away, so life in such a place in the Middle Ages must have been quite hard. Why build a castle in the middle of nowhere?

Administrative building

The building was built by Ottokar II who ruled between 1253 and 1278 the Kingdom of Bohemia. It was then one of the wealthiest territories in the region that is now Czechia, for having numerous gold mines, until they were exhausted centuries later.

The Kingdom of Bohemia was one of the seven electors of the Holy Roman Emperor. It had no taxes and the gold metal allowed it to hire unlimited mercenaries to defend its borders.

castle Houska castle
Aerial view of the castle in the middle of nowhere. Today, water can be piped in but the area is still quite uninhabited, except for a few houses and resorts that have sprung up in the wake of the tourism that Houska attracts.

The official story goes that Houska Castle was built as an administrative center to control the extensive royal estates. However, the scholarly version doesn’t add up for numerous reasons.

Bohemia was administered from Prague, not from a lost house 47km (30 miles) from the capital, built in the middle of nowhere, between forest and swamps. Far from any road or trade route.

houska castle
The castle has no fortifications. The closest thing to walls is the rock on which it is built at one end. Inside that rock, a deep chasm is hidden.

The most striking aspect is that the building has no drinking water except for some primitive tanks to collect rainwater. It also has no walls to defend the facilities. It has no kitchen and the surrounding forest is so dense that it is not a good hunting area for food. When the work was completed, there were no occupants.

During the following centuries, the property was changing owners among various aristocrats. The last one was the president of the First Czech Republic, Josef Šimonek in 1924.

castle Houska castle
The interior yard. One of these doors gives access to the chapel. Successive alterations have erased the original gothic style. The pond in the center is not the gateway to hell, it is part of a rudimentary system for collecting rainwater.

The castle was renovated once between 1584-1590. From the 18th century onwards it remained uninhabited, with the facilities slowly languishing because no one went there, neither friend nor foe…

…until the World War II broke out and it was occupied by the Third Reich for the same unknown reason. Why did the Germans want a castle with no strategic interest or fortifications in the middle of nowhere?

The gateway to hell

The answer is that Reich showed up there with the intention of conducting occult experiments.

The building’s location in the middle of nowhere is due to the fact that at that very spot, there was a gateway to hell. A deep chasm, from which it was rumored that strange anthropomorphic animals and dark-colored winged creatures came out, which then terrorized the nearest villages.

castle Houska castle
The rather sinister looking chapel, which now covers the gateway to hell, right underneath the discolored area of the floor. Tourists often crouch down and stick their ears to one of these slabs to try to hear the noises coming from the chasm. It is said that some visitors suffer streaks of bad luck for days and weeks after being in Houska, as if they have been temporarily cursed.

First, a chapel was built over the well to close the hell gate. Next, around the church, the castle was built to protect the chapel, with fortifications inside. Thick walls to contain the demons that could be there inside, so that they could not go outside.

When work began, the duke who ruled Houska offered to commute all death sentences for prisoners who consented to be lowered into the depths of the well by rope and reported what they saw inside.

castle Houska castle
Side view of the chapel showing the very faded original frescoes that decorated the walls. The sanctuary is dedicated to the archangel St. Michael, depicted defeating the devil, next to the door. The chapel is also used for weddings. What better way to start a marriage than to tie the knot on top of a gateway to hell and then go on honeymoon with a demonic entity attached.

The first prisoner to be introduced into the hell gate began screaming in terror within seconds of entering. Upon being hoisted to the surface, the individual appeared to have aged 30 years. His face was full of wrinkles and his hair had turned white. He died a few days later delirious, unable to relate what he had witnessed. The experiment was repeated with several prisoners, with the same results.

The chapel is decorated with frescoes representing the supposed beings that came out of hell. Figures resembling demons and evil animals attacking people. In one of the corners, there is a woman shooting with a bow and killing a demon with an arrow.

castle Houska castle
The clearest frescoes, scenes of hunting the beasts that came out of the hole.

According to the Prague tourist office, Houska Castle is haunted by several strange ghosts that roam its rooms. One of them has a hybrid form between human and giant frog. Another is a headless horse.

There is a spectral old woman who wanders through the corridors. Also, a dark shadow called “the guardian” and the rest are demonic beasts that managed to escape from the hell gate but not get out of its walls.

castle Houska castle
The rest of the rooms in the building are of little interest because the renovations have left almost nothing of the original Gothic style. The walls of rooms and corridors are full of animal heads hunted over the centuries.

About the Nazi experiments no information is preserved because before fleeing Czechoslovakia, they destroyed all related documentation.

When the owners recovered the confiscated property and inspected it, they found dozens of books on occultism and Kabbalah, apparently brought from Germany since they were written in Teutonic language.

When renovations were carried out years after the war, the skeletons of several German officers were found, with indications of having been executed by their own comrades.

This was a common practice when the Reich was about to collapse, to prevent scientists and key staff from revealing sensitive data to the enemy. What could the nazis have found out about the hell gate?

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