The Castle is supposed to be 1000 years old and has little strategic importance.  The present building dates to 1455, but the courts have changed because of rebuilding.

The institution in Dresden which cares for historic buildings has found a lot of information about the castle but has not yet succeeded in explaining the origin of the word ‘Kuckuckstein’.  The original and correct name of the Castle is ‘Sclhoß Liebstadt’.
 

First Room

Through the windows on the floor you can see the rooms of the castle were higher in former times.  The secret passage starts in the room of Napoleon upstairs with a trap door and a wooden staircase and it comes down to this room entering it behind a bookshelf that was there in the past.  It was possible to move the shelf with a lever hidden behind the books.  The passage continued through the next room and through the rock to the manor estate on the street.  It was a good escape way even when the enemy already occupied the courts.
 
 
 
 

Second Room: Free Masons Room

This room was furnished by Carlowitz in 1800.  Later the decorations on the walls was painted over with lime.  In 1967 the old decoration was discovered and restored.  This room is divided into two parts - one for the day having the sun on the ceiling and one for the night with a moon.  Connected to the night part of the room is a small dark study, used to prepare for examinations.


On the ceiling are different astrological signs such as the Bear, the Orion and the Northern Crown.  Additionally, there are signs for the symbols of the Free Masons: the set square, the triangle and the compass. 

All astrological signs are depicted with seven stars even if they contained a greater or smaller number (seven is an important number for the free masons.  One can find Free Masons in almost all countries of the world, but they prefer to be anonymous).


The room originally had to have three windows, but it only one, so the two missing windows were painted on the walls.  The mistakes in this room - instead of the oak tree in the decorations there should have been an acacia.  Carlowitz as a romantic and a German patriot preferred the oak.  The staircase originally had seven steps but it was rebuilt according to the standard and it now has nine.

Third room: Hunting room

There are Coats of arms on the ceiling indicating the Carlowitz family in the middle and the families with whom they have intermarried.  In the middle of the room is the elephant table.  H von Mayenburg bought this table in Italy as a souvenir and brought it to Liebstadt in 1931.  He was the last multimillionaire of Dresden and the last owner of the castle and he became well known because of his chlorodont tooth-paste.

For a long time it was impossible for the historians to find out what this table was used for because it was too high to sit on so they considered the table to be used as a bar for lawyers or as a table for map reading.  But finally they found a clue to the function of the table which contains a snake and an Aesculapian sword.  The table was once used to dissect humans and it had a tin table top.  The Mayenburg family used this table for laying the cold buffet.
 
 

Fourth room

This room contains a collection of portraits of the Free Masons donated by the Art Gallery in Dresden.  The first public showing of these was in Liebstadt in 1986.  All ‘brothers’ in the portraits wear the typical clothes of the group of Free Masons in this region; blue clothing, a blue ribbon with a set square on it and an apron with blue fringes with a set square folded on top of the apron.  The men with a hammer in their hands are the ‘Masters of the Chair’ - the chairman of the three groups of Free Masons in Dresden.  If there is no name under the portrait the name of the person was to be kept secret.
 
 

Fifth room: Room of Napoleon

This is one of the most beautiful rooms of the castle and belonged to Frau von Carlowitz.  The room got its name because Napoleon slept there on September 19, 1813.   There are some reasons why Napoleon preferred this room - it has got a fireplace - it has got a trap door and provided the possibility to flee.
 
 

There is an excellent view over the town and the surrounding hills where Napoleon expected the troops from Austria, Prussia and Russia to appear.

When the French officers were at the Castle they used the stones in their rings to scratch in the windows.  They wrote that they wanted to go back to Paris, that they did not like Liebstadt because there was no veal, no beautiful ladies, but only sauerkraut.

In former times there was a painting of Moreau in this room, but there is only a copy of it now.  Because Moreau was Napoleon’s opponent, Napoleon scratches Moreau’s French war decorations off the painting and wrote underneath: “This traitor was not worthy of the decorations”.
 
 
 

Sixth room: Office

Until 1866 there was a court in this room mainly dealing with inheritance.  People were sentenced to death in this room, too.  They kept the room dark on purpose.  The prisoner had to stand in this room wheras the Judge stood upstairs, so the atmosphere in the room showed very clearly the difference between then condemned and the judge, between the lords and the common people.  At present there is an exhibition about the peasant’s rebellion in Saxony.

Seventh room

From 1851 to 1971 the School of Liebstadt used this room for sports lessons and playing football.  So it took the institution for the protection of historic buildings three years to restore the room with the help of Liebstadt’s craftsmen.  The room is furnished in the new Gothic style of 1900.  There are oak trees and leaves painted on the ceiling, which was a fashion of that time.

The Chandelier was hidden in a box in the cellar for years and was found only in the middle of the 1970’s and fitted to the ceiling.  During cleaning the chandelier the thin gold layer came off and the rod of the chandelier was only brass.  So the restorators did not worry about keeping this piece and it was possible to wind the electric wiring round the round and cover it with fabric.  The fire place was a wedding present.  This can be seen from the coats of arms on the mantelpiece and the inscription.  The black clubs are the coat of arms of the Carlowitz family and the sickles with the ravin feathers represent the Lüttichau family.  From 1985-1988 the GDR-TV used this room as a setting for a TV series.