Wolfenbüttel Palace contains the only state and private apartments of the High and Late Baroque in Niedersachsen. For some 400 years up to the year 1754, the palace served as the residence of the Dukes of Braunschweig (Brunswick) and Lüneburg. Created from a medieval castle and a Renaissance palace, the superb facades and exceptional state apartments of Wolfenbüttel Palace now make it a complete baroque artwork.
Various notable personalities of German and European history were born in the palace, grew up here or were active at the court. The later Empress Elisabeth Christine – the wife of Emperor Charles VI, mother of Empress Maria Theresa and grandmother of the French Queen Marie Antoinette – was born here, as was Duchess Anna Amalia of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach, who gave her name to the famous Weimar Library. Two famous visitors to the palace were Electress Sophie of Hanover and her son, the later King George I of Great Britain, while other illustrious visitors to Wolfenbüttel Palace included Tsar Peter the Great of Russia and the Prussian King Frederick William I, the Soldier King, and his son Frederick the Great.
The ducal apartments are the only ones of their kind in Niedersachsen and here one can gain an idea of everyday courtly life in the age of absolutism.