With black and white film and a red filter, the gothic mood of the castle can be seen.
The concept of photojournalism is to be able to write your story based upon the photographs. It was a concept I used whenever I wrote the sports stories, and the story for this particular page. That's right... Sir Lothar is a figment of my imagination.
Landstuhl Castle
Rheinland-Platz, Germany
The year was 1496. The last refuse of knights within the Holy Roman Empire occupied a castle outside the city of Landstuhl. For the last ten years, soldiers of the Empire did everything they could to track the knights to either convert or destroy. The days of honor and glory of the old realm was gone. In it’s place a regime that would rule the land for centuries.
Within the walls of the red, sandstone castle 20 knights prepared themselves for what they knew to be their final battle. In the valley, campfires lit the evening sky. Soldiers from the city of Trier. Soldiers trained for war, for butchery. Trained to use cannons and rifles. Barbaric compared to the knights’ traditional weaponry of bows and arrows, and swords.
On the eve of battle, Sir Lothar of Bruhl gathered the other knights to the far end of the castle. He explained his willingness to stay, to fight as a knight should. There he forgave any man wanting to leave and allowed them the chance to do so -- far from the camps of the invading soldiers.
The attack began before noon. Mortar shells broke through the castle walls. Rifle shots were fired. The sounds of battle heard in the command tent down the hill. Then silence.
The 20 knights. The last. They knew their cause was lost; they knew they would never leave their posts. The honor of their chivalrous code, their way of life was all that matter to them – even at the cost of their lives.
At the far end of the castle. The place where knights gathered for the final time. There buried are the twenty knights of old.