History of Löcknitz

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The history of Löcknitz goes back to the 7th / 8th centuries. Century back. Löcknitz is a municipality in the district of Vorpommern-Greifswald in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania .

Surname

1124 is in connection with the mission trip of Bishop Otto von Bamberg on behalf of Duke Bolesław III. Wrymouth of Poland for the Christianization of the Slavs in Pomerania a Slavic bailiff Conrad de Lokeniz appointed by Duke Wartislaw I of Pomerania and a Slavic settlement known for 1127 , both however without further details or direct connection to Löcknitz. In a deed of gift from Duke Bogislaw II of Pomerania from 1212, Thomas de Lokenitz is listed as the episcopal Vogt of Löcknitz Castle as a witness . This was the first time the name Löcknitz was mentioned. In another document , which the Bishop of Cammin issued in Stettin in 1267, the place Lokenitz (Slavic for river of puddles , swamp hole or pit depression ) is mentioned again in a document. According to the church statutes of the diocese of Cammin, the castrum Lokenitze cum opido ("Burg Löcknitz with city") has been among the bishop's table goods since the diocese was founded in 1175 and had to pay taxes and provide accommodation when passing through. The place, which probably had no town charter, remained in the possession of the diocese of Cammin until 1385, at least until 1373, from which the last document dated directly in Löcknitz comes. The Randow, which flows through Löcknitz, was mainly called Lochnitza until around 1700 . The river was first mentioned with this name in a deed of donation from 1216, and again in 1288 in a deed describing the boundaries of the Uckermark. The term Randow, on the other hand, was originally just the name for the wetlands along the river in the Randowbruch.

Early history

The landmark of Löcknitz: Löcknitz Castle with the keep

Excavation finds show that the area was already settled in the Stone Age . Slavic Ukranians settled in the area in the 7th and 8th centuries . The Slavic castle Lokenitza was originally probably built around 1100 by Pomerania from a pile work with beams and surrounded by a ring wall with palisades and ditches and at that time protected the ford through the Randow, among other things, from attacks by the Slavic Wilzen and Liutizen . In the 13th century, probably under the Pomeranian Duke Barnim I "the city founder " from the noble family of the Griffin dynasty , a German castle was built from brickwork. For fixing the substrate and the paths towards Loecknitz to the ford by the Randowbruch, with his then numerous bogs and marshes, as well as the proven for 1237, extending through Löcknitz, Via Imperii from Szczecin to Leipzig, where it joins the Via Regia crossed served stick and wooden planks. This explains the name Bollbrücke (Bohlenbrücke), which was mentioned in a document about Logeniz in 1242 and is still used today, for the street coming west of the Randow from the direction of Pasewalk and running from today's entrance to Löcknitz to the bridge over the Randow and the houses there . The villages Plöwen , Bergholz and Bismark (today part of Ramin ) belonged to the castle at that time.

middle Ages

Because of its location at the ford on the Randow River and on the border between Pomerania and Brandenburg, Löcknitz was often fought over. It belonged to the Duchy of Pomerania from the earliest times until 1250 . With the conclusion of the Landin Treaty in the same year, Löcknitz, in which a customs post is mentioned for 1290, changed territory to Mark Brandenburg , where it remained until 1373. In the period between 1295 and 1373 the Uckermark and also Löcknitz were fought over and over again between the territorial states of the Dukes of Pomerania, the Margraves of Brandenburg, the Dukes of Poland, the Bishops of Cammin, the Kings of Denmark and the Dukes of Mecklenburg serious military conflicts occurred, which only ended temporarily with the Treaty of Fürstenwalde . In 1373, at the latest in 1385, Duke Swantibor III acquired. from Pomerania-Stettin castle and place Löcknitz from the diocese of Cammin. As a result, Löcknitz belonged again to Pomerania until 1468, which, however, pledged the Löcknitz castle fief in 1390 for 3,000 thalers to the patricians Peter and Heinrich von Wussow from Stettin. For their part, after the destruction of the war, the von Wussow men began to renovate and expand an existing building next to the castle into a first castle and kept Löcknitz until 1416. By 1433 at the latest, Löcknitz was given by Pomerania as a fief to the von Heydebreck family and was located initially owned by Vicke von Heydebrecks, who later handed it over to his son Hans von Heydebreck, who kept it until 1468. After the death of Duke Otto III. of Pomerania-Stettin and the outbreak of the Stettin succession dispute, war broke out again between Pomerania and Brandenburg. As a result, Löcknitz was conquered by the Electorate of Brandenburg on August 5, 1468 , with a large number of Pomeranian nobles such as the von Heydebrecks , the von Eickstedts , the von Ramins or the von Schwerins , who had defended the Löcknitz Castle, in Brandenburg captivity got. In 1471 the Elector of Brandenburg appointed the Brandenburg nobleman Hans von Buch from the Uckermark as the new castle captain of Löcknitz Castle and bailiff of the Löcknitz office. He had the command of 20 soldiers and also had a gunsmith to maintain the guns on the castle and a castner as an assistant to the bailiff to collect the customs, taxes and levies in kind from the sovereign subjects . Hans von Buch's successors at Löcknitz Castle were Gottfried von Hohenlohe and, from 1472, Werner von der Schulenburg . He was captured during a stay in Gartz (Oder) in 1477 during a counterattack by Duke Bogislaw X, the Great of Pomerania, on the Uckermark, as a result of which on April 30, 1478, Löcknitz Castle was briefly recaptured from Pomerania. After the incursion of a Brandenburg army under Elector Albrecht III in 1479 . Achilles of Brandenburg in Pomerania and through the mediation of Werner von der Schulenburg, the Prenzlau contract was negotiated in the same year , in which Brandenburg "Lockenitz, dat Slos and Amt mit dem Stetichen before" was confirmed again after 1472 and this time finally confirmed by Pomerania . Since then, Löcknitz has belonged to the Uckermark region in Brandenburg as an independent office until 1818 . Elector Albrecht III. Achilles von Brandenburg also enfeoffed Werner von der Schulenburg in 1479 as a reward for mediating the peace treaty with the hereditary captaincy over Löcknitz Castle and appointed him as bailiff of the Löcknitz office. Both remained in the possession of the von der Schulenburg family until 1688 , whose property was significantly expanded under Werner von der Schulenburg. In addition to Löcknitz Castle, he also acquired the surrounding villages of Rossow , Bergholz , Woddow, Wollschow, Bagemühl, Battin, Retzin, Plöwen , Bismark and, in 1487, 1492 and 1495, additional lands near Grimme, Menkin , Caselow and Zerrenthin .

16th Century

Werner von der Schulenburg's successors in Löcknitz were his son Jakob von der Schulenburg from 1515, then his grandson Joachim I von der Schulenburg and from 1535 his great-grandson Joachim II von der Schulenburg. The latter was able to expand his possessions even further, in addition to the Löcknitz manor with 6 outbuildings and numerous other farming villages, he also owned the Penkun manor with the surrounding villages. Joachim II von der Schulenburg had a new palace or mansion built in the Renaissance style with a chapel and a church with a clock tower right next to the castle in 1557 . A pastor was first mentioned in Löcknitz in 1514. After Joachim II's death in 1594, his son Richard von der Schulenburg took over the entire property, which, however, was lavish and unprofitable and a few years later lost the entire Löcknitz castle loan, which was valued at 253,811 thalers. It was only Levin von der Schulenburg , a cousin of Joachim II, who managed to buy back Löcknitz from the creditors and left it to his son Albrecht von der Schulenburg, debt-free and in an orderly manner.

17th century

"Prospect des Vösten House Löckenitz" from 1676, from: Theatrum Europaeum 1633–1738 (Matthäus Merian)

In the Thirty Years' War from 1618 to 1648, Pomerania and Brandenburg were occupied, plundered and devastated several times by the different warring parties. In the spring of 1627 imperial troops with a strength of 6000 soldiers penetrated the Uckermark via Strasburg (Uckermark) for the first time , occupied Löcknitz on March 2, 1627 and wanted to march on from there via Stettin to Pomerania. Only after payment of 9,000 thalers by the Duke of Pomerania, who wanted to keep his country neutral and out of the chaos of war, did the imperial troops move south to Schwedt / Oder . In the summer of 1627 imperial troops of the general Albrecht von Wallenstein occupied Löcknitz again; they built the castle and the chateau into a fortress and stayed in the village until 1629. Already in the winter of 1628/29 Albrecht von der Schulenburg had to pay 7000 thalers war contributions to the imperial troops in Löcknitz before they drove him and the whole family from Schulenburg from their properties. After Swedish troops under their King Gustav II Adolf landed on the island of Usedom in June 1630 , they occupied Löcknitz in January 1631 with 500 soldiers and 4 guns, whose inhabitants now had to supply the Swedish troops under severe hardship. In 1635 the place was briefly occupied again by imperial troops. On March 5, 1636, the Swedish colonel and later field marshal Carl Gustav Wrangel was finally able to recapture the fortress and the village of Löcknitz after a long siege and bombardment in a night assault. The castle and Schloss Löcknitz remained occupied by Swedish troops until after the end of the war. Pomerania lost about two thirds of its population during this time, while in Brandenburg the population losses were between 40 and 75 percent. In Löcknitz, due to the effects of the war and the outbreak of the plague in 1637/38, only 48 of 197 farmers remained, and only one of 80 farms . Löcknitz was in ruins, only the castle with the castle and the fortifications as well as the castle mill remained. The church, which was built together with the castle from 1557, had also been completely destroyed by the effects of the war, which is why the services of the Löcknitz residents took place in the castle chapel from then on. After the death of Bogislaw XIV , the last Pomeranian Duke, in 1637, Pomerania finally fell under the influence of Sweden. Brandenburg and in particular the Uckermark with Löcknitz remained fiercely contested between the imperial and Swedish troops from 1637 to 1640. Despite an armistice between the Brandenburg Elector Friedrich Wilhelm and Sweden in 1641 , Löcknitz continued to be occupied by Swedish troops. In the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, Pomerania was divided between Sweden and Brandenburg-Prussia. Sweden received Western Pomerania and a strip of territory east of the Oder with Stettin ( Swedish-Pomerania ). Western Pomerania fell to the Electorate of Brandenburg-Prussia . Löcknitz remained with Brandenburg-Prussia, but was occupied by Swedish troops until 1650. The rivers Welse and Randow now formed the new border between Brandenburg and Swedish Pomerania. As a result, Löcknitz, with its castle and reinforced castle, which was further fortified by Brandenburg-Prussia from 1651, became an important Brandenburg border fortress towards Sweden. At the end of the Thirty Years' War, the Schulenburg family had also returned to Löcknitz and now demanded their Löcknitz castle loan from the elector, which he refused due to the lack of fief letters. On the contrary, on August 8, 1650, the elector had appointed Vollrath von Maltzahn, a bailiff, as administrator. Thereupon a long-term legal dispute broke out over the ownership of the castle, the palace and the entire fiefdom of Löcknitz, which was to last until 1688.

During the Second Swedish-Polish War (Second Northern War) from 1655 to 1660, all of Swedish-Pomerania was briefly occupied in 1659 by Brandenburg-Prussia, who was fighting on the Polish side. The Löcknitz border fortress served as an important starting point for this campaign. In 1660, in the Peace of Oliva , Brandenburg-Prussia had to give back the conquered Swedish territories.

In the Swedish-Brandenburg War from 1674 to 1679, fighting again took place between Swedish and Brandenburg troops in the Löcknitz area in 1675. During the Swedish invasion of Brandenburg in 1674/75 , the Löcknitz fortress was bombarded for a day by 3,000-strong Swedish troops who were part of the 12,000-strong Swedish army (10 infantry regiments and 12 cavalry regiments) under Field Marshal Wrangel in Altdamm near Stettin . Thereupon the fortress commander, the Brandenburg colonel Jobst Sigismund von Goetz (en) , handed over on 14./15. May 1675 the fortress against the assurance of free withdrawal to the Swedish troops without offering major resistance. Only a 180-man crew was available to him. For this act Götzen was later sentenced to death by a court martial and executed on March 24, 1676 in Berlin. In order to prevent further incursions by the Swedes from Löcknitz to Brandenburg and the Uckermark, the Brandenburg Elector Friedrich Wilhelm undertook his so-called Pomeranian campaign in 1675/76 . In 1676 he first recaptured the Löcknitz fortress from the Swedes and from there began again with the advance to conquer Swedish Pomerania. By November 1678, Elector Friedrich Wilhelm, the Great Elector , had conquered and occupied all of Swedish Pomerania, but had to return it to Sweden again in the Peace of Saint-Germain in 1679 .

“ Ground plan of the Hösten Grentzhaus Löckenitz. So the Swedes were taken afterwards but again conquered by Chur Brandenburg. This is what happened there on February 3rd A ° 1676 ", from: Theatrum Europaeum 1633–1738 (Matthäus Merian)

Even after the end of the Thirty Years' War, Brandenburg-Prussia had recovered extremely slowly and only partially from the devastation and destruction caused by the effects of the war. As a result of the new wars, large parts of the electorate were again depopulated and the economy was on the floor. In the parish register of the municipality of Löcknitz from 1672, for example, it said about the place: "Löcknitz, where a town has been from time immemorial, but now it has been ruined and nothing can be found here, besides the renovated fortress, a royal outbuilding, the post house, the jug and a sheep farm, the mill and a few other houses. ”Elector Friedrich Wilhelm therefore continued his peuplication policy , which he had begun from 1648 to 1650 , and issued the edict of Potsdam in 1685, which he did not only allow religious refugees from Switzerland , the Palatinate , Wallonia and the Netherlands , but also the Protestant Christians persecuted in France , the Huguenots (Réfugiés), offered free and secure settlement in Brandenburg-Prussia and granted them far-reaching rights and privileges. Of the 50,000 Huguenots who fled to the Holy Roman Empire , around 20,000 Huguenots with their diverse, highly qualified skills and professions settled in Brandenburg-Prussia. About 2,000 Huguenots came to the Uckermark in particular, bringing with them the cultivation of tobacco and silkworms . These were mainly settled there in 42 localities as arable farmers and tobacco growers in order to rebuild the economy and the devastated land. a. also in the Löcknitz office. In 1684 there were 48 fortified but still 105 desolate farms as well as one reinforced and 58 desolate cottages . This is how the Löcknitz u. a. with Battin and Bagemühl (today both districts of Brüssow ) as well as with Fahrenwalde, Bergholz, Rossow and Zerrenthin French-Reformed parishes of the colonists, whose French family names have been preserved for generations in the towns and villages of the region and also in Löcknitz, such as E.g .: Fordinal, Senechal, Houdelett, Sy, Pouillion, Gombert, Bettac, Desombres, Gueffroy, Jordan, Delander, Marsal, Dhuse, Petitjean, Leclair, Pliquett etc.

As early as 1685, Elector Friedrich Wilhelm had created facts with regard to the Löcknitz castle loan and the von der Schulenburg family. After Burgvogt Vollrath von Maltzahn leased both Löcknitz and the surrounding estates between 1674 and 1685 and managed them on his own account, in June 1685 the elector converted the Löcknitz castle loan into an electoral domain and appointed a captain von Grumbkow as its administrator as well as for the office of Löcknitz appointed the councilor von Weise. In addition, he rejected all claims of the von der Schulenburg family on Löcknitz, which was subsequently confirmed by a court in 1688. At that time, the following Schulenburg estates, farms and farming villages belonged to the electoral domain Löcknitz: Zerrenthin, Rossow, Caselow, Fahrenwalde, Bergholz, Grimme, Klockow, Wallmow, Woddow, Schmölln, Battin, Bagemühl, Plöwen and Bismark.

18th century

Place and castle Löcknitz in 1759 (Swedish War Archives)

During the Great Northern War from 1700 to 1721, especially from 1711 to 1715 and during the Pomeranian campaign of 1715/16, Russian, Prussian and Saxon troops crossed the Uckermark and the area in and around Löcknitz in the fight against Sweden and to conquer Swedish Pomerania. As a result of this and the renewed outbreak of the plague in 1710 , the area and its inhabitants were devastated by new ones and plagued by destruction. In the Treaty of Stockholm in January 1720, Sweden had to cede southern Western Pomerania to the Peene ( Old Western Pomerania ) including the city of Stettin and the islands of Wollin and Usedom to Prussia under King Friedrich Wilhelm I, the soldier king . Löcknitz and his fortress were no longer on the border. This made the strategically important location of Löcknitz militarily insignificant for Prussia. In 1715 the Löcknitz fortress with castle and palace was still armed with 18 guns, but the operating teams were missing. A lieutenant colonel Heinrich von Blankenburg is known as the last fortress commandant of Löcknitz in 1717 . Until the peace treaty in 1720, the Löcknitz fortress was kept in a defensible state before it was abandoned that same year and gradually fell into disrepair in the following years.

As early as 1710, judicial offices had been established in Prussia to take over the jurisdiction of goods and domains. This is also the case in Löcknitz, where the gallows was, for example, on the first hill called Galgenberg behind the Löcknitz exit towards Plöwen, while the valley in front of the second hill was called Galgenbruch . Previously, only the administrators of domains and estates had exercised jurisdiction and jurisdiction through patrimonial courts on behalf of their aristocratic landlords , which, however, had only negotiated the lower jurisdiction . In addition, three stagecoach lines are known for Löcknitz for 1740, which led through the town, after a post house in the town was mentioned in the Löcknitz church register as early as 1672. This was on the one hand the line Stettin- Wendorf- Möhringen - Neuenkirchen - Neulinken -Bismarck-Löcknitz, on the other hand the line Stettin-Wendorf- Köstin -Schmagerow-Salzow-Löcknitz- Prenzlau and on to Berlin as well as the line Löcknitz-Salzow-Retzin- Glasow - Krackow to Penkun . From 1735 to 1737 the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I drove through Löcknitz and the surrounding villages in his carriages several times on his travels from Berlin to Stettin . Löcknitz served as a rest station and place for changing the horses of the royal carriages.

Having first been already tried in vain from 1685 to 1687 under Elector Friedrich Wilhelm was the lower Randowbruch between Loecknitz and Eggesin through amelioration to drain and dry out, Frederick William I started off in 1730 under King to cultivate the middle Randowbruch and 8,800 hectares of new pastures and to create arable land. There, following a royal order issued as early as 1717, orchards were to be planted and mulberry trees to be planted in order to promote the silkworm rearing and the production of silks and fabrics brought by the Huguenots from France . For this purpose, a new river bed was dug for the Randow between Löcknitz and Schmölln with a close-knit network of drainage and drainage ditches that are still in place today. The desired success did not materialize, however, because the lower Randowbruch between Löcknitz and Eggesin, where the Randow flows into the Uecker at its lower reaches , was still not regulated and the water could not yet flow away there. In addition, the water of the Randow for the Löcknitzer Schlossmühle was dammed near Löcknitz, which meant that the Randow meadows continued to flood, especially in autumn and spring. For this reason, the Löcknitzer castle mill was demolished in the 1730s and a windmill was built. The regulation work on the Randow was stopped again under King Friedrich Wilhelm I due to the extremely high costs.

Place and Castle Löcknitz from 1760 (Swedish War Archives)

In 1742, King Friedrich II not only renewed the promotion of silkworm breeding with a royal order, but finally had the work in the Randowbruch continue a few years before the outbreak of the Seven Years War . The regulation of the lower reaches of the Randow from Eggesin upstream to Löcknitz was carried out during which the course of the river was straightened and all bends, bends and river loops removed within the six years of work . This shortened the length of the Randow between Löcknitz and Jägerbrück from originally 36 to just 22 kilometers. After the first fruit tree and mulberry plantation had already been established in Pasewalk in 1745, mulberry trees were also planted for silkworm breeding in the surrounding villages and in Randowbruch, also near Löcknitz. Within a few decades, however, the Randow was soon silted up again and overgrown with weeds and undergrowth, so that readjustment and thorough cleaning took place between 1772 and 1776. As a result, extensive pastureland was created in the Randowbruch on the banks of the Randow instead of the previous swamp forests. Silkworm breeding and the creation of mulberry plantations, on the other hand, were stopped quite soon after the climate in the Uckermark and Pomerania turned out to be too unfavorable for this after a few years.

Although Löcknitz had been in the hinterland since the end of the Great Northern War in 1720/21, it was not spared from acts of war during the Seven Years' War from 1756 to 1763. In September 1757 Swedish troops of 17,000 soldiers from Swedish Pomerania advanced across the Peene towards southern Western Pomerania, Brandenburg and Uckermark, and in October they captured Löcknitz, which had been defended by only 3,000 Prussian troops as an outpost of the fortress Stettin . Under the commander General Field Marshal Johann von Lehwaldt appointed by the Prussian King Friedrich II., The Great , 25,000 strong Prussian troops reached Stettin in November and were not only able to recapture Löcknitz on December 8, 1757, but then the Swedes again behind them via Pasewalk and Demmin Fight back Peene and push back as far as Stralsund and Rügen. During the entire year 1758 Löcknitz could be held by Prussian troops who expanded the fortress with 5 guns as well as new entrenchments and palisades and secured the ford through the Randow militarily. At the end of August 1759, the Prussian major Otto Gottlob von Stülpnagel (1716–1772) succeeded in a surprise attack from Löcknitz to conquer Pasewalk and to take 160 Swedish soldiers prisoner. In an immediate counter-attack, on September 3, 1759, Swedish troops were able to recapture Löcknitz for a few days in a single coup, with the sheep farm in Löcknitz with 3,500 sheep completely burned down until they finally retreated behind the Peene to Swedish Pomerania in January 1760 . Löcknitz had suffered severe damage during this war due to constant troop movements and fighting. In 1760 there were 25 houses in addition to the castle, the palace, remains of the fortress and the office. In the following decades, however, Löcknitz recovered relatively quickly and developed from a small settlement in the shade and supplying the castle to an independent and larger village.

19th century

Ruins of the keep and vaulted cellar of Löcknitz Castle from 1842

In 1805 the castle chapel, in which the church services of the Löcknitz community had taken place since the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648, was demolished due to its desolate state of construction, after a provisional new building of a small but also not very solid half-timbered church had been built in 1804 .

In the course of the Napoleonic Wars from 1792 to 1813 Prussia suffered under King Friedrich Wilhelm III. In the battle of Jena and Auerstedt in October 1806 his worst defeat against France under Emperor Napoleon I. All of Prussia was occupied by French troops and on October 28, 1806 also Löcknitz, by cavalry units under the command of Marshal Joachim Murat , a brother-in-law of Emperor Napoleon I. After the Peace of Tilsit in July 1807, Prussia also had to pay high war contributions to France and, in addition, French troops were constantly moving through, which remained in the country until December 1808 and had to be fed and quartered during that time. In Löcknitz, too, which was on Heerstraße to the east, French troops moved repeatedly to the fortress of Stettin, which was still occupied by the French after December 1808. The Oberamtmann Sänger from the Löcknitz Office was responsible for billeting and catering for the French troops and the Bavarian units allied with them by the Rhine Confederation , which were also located in Löcknitz. Under the supervision of a French magazine manager he had for the configured in Löcknitz Magazine organize the French troops provisions of the farmers from the surrounding villages, provided they were not already fled because of the so broken famine. In August and September 1807 alone, a total of 20,000 food rations were requisitioned for the Löcknitz warehouse in the surrounding villages. In order to be able to pay the enormous costs of boarding and billeting the French occupation troops, the high war contributions and the reforms in state and society aimed at after the defeat , Prussia had to sell numerous royal state domains in order to be able to raise sufficient funds. Therefore, the Löcknitz domain was dissolved in 1807 and large parts of the land were parceled out and, including the castle and palace, sold to private owners. From March 1812, Löcknitz had to take up again strong troop units, which were part of the French Grande Armée for Napoleon's Russian campaign , for billeting. In the next three months until June 1812, coming from Anklam on the road, an army of approx. 180,000 soldiers passed Löcknitz via Pasewalk to Stettin and on to Moscow. After the defeat of France in Russia with the withdrawal from Moscow in October 1812 and the defeat in the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, the wars of liberation began from 1813 to 1815. The French troops then had to withdraw, but held the fortress Stettin and the surrounding area , so also Löcknitz, still occupied. From April 1813 Prussian troops and 400 Russian Cossacks besieged Stettin, but they could not finally recapture the fortress and the surrounding area including Löcknitz until December 1813. After the occupation of Paris by the Allied coalition troops in March 1814 and the final defeat of Napoleon I in the Battle of Waterloo / Belle Alliance in June 1815 and the associated end of the Wars of Liberation, Prussia then got it at the Congress of Vienna in 1814/15 remaining area of ​​Western Pomerania north of the Peene including the island of Rügen ( New Western Pomerania ) awarded.

In 1818 a fundamental administrative reform took place in the Kingdom of Prussia with the reorganization of the provinces, administrative districts and districts. In the course of this, Löcknitz finally moved back from Brandenburg to Pomerania and from 1818 to 1939 belonged to the Randow district in the administrative district of Stettin in the Prussian province of Pomerania . With the dissolution of the Löcknitz domain in 1807, the economic and social structure of Löcknitz had changed significantly. The parceling of the lands and their sale meant that for the first time there was private peasant property in Löcknitz, and the castle and palace were also privately owned. The remaining lands, forest and water areas as well as the Löcknitzer See of the former Löcknitz domain, however, had been transferred to the Caselow domain.

On September 20, 1832, a major fire broke out in Löcknitz, in which around half of the town was destroyed. The Löcknitz pastor Julius Theodor Moll was also killed during the fire during extinguishing and rescue work . In honor of this, a commemorative sermon was given in Löcknitz on October 7, 1832 by the Protestant pastor Carl Büchsel from Prenzlau.

As early as 1820, was Chaussee Pasewalk-Loecknitz-Stettin been built, which Loecknitz transport links now much better to only 25 km to the east, Pomeranian province capital Stettin was connected with its important port. With the construction of the Prenzlau - Pasewalk - Anklam - Stralsund road from 1832 to 1836, Löcknitz also found a connection to the national road network. In 1878/79 the Löcknitz- Brüssow -Prenzlau road followed, with which Löcknitz was better connected to Brandenburg and the Uckermark. As early as November 1862, Löcknitz was connected to the Prussian railway network by the Berlin-Stettiner Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft . In March and November 1863 the Angermünde-Pasewalk-Anklam-Stralsund and Pasewalk-Löcknitz-Stettin railway lines were opened. In the same year Löcknitz also received a station building. In the 1850s / 60s, Löcknitz, which had 1,100 inhabitants at that time, was still characterized by a rural character with 85 houses and 289 families as well as over 80 farms, around 50 craft businesses, 6 restaurants and 15 traders. With the new transport connections, however, the economic situation for Löcknitz in particular improved significantly.

Castle and keep of Löcknitz Castle, around 1851

Larger parts of Löcknitz Castle stood until 1841, but the keep and the cellar vault were in fact only ruins. The castle directly adjacent to the castle, however, had been completely renovated in 1851 by the owner of the nearby castle brewery and rental apartments were set up in it. In 1863/64 the provisional timber-framed emergency church built in Löcknitz in 1804, like the old rectory, was already in a state of disrepair, which is why both had to be demolished. After the rebuilding of the parsonage, which is still used as a parsonage, had already started around 1863, the foundation stone was laid on October 1, 1869 for the neo-Gothic church in Löcknitz, which still stands today . The church was completed on August 17, 1870, consecrated on June 13, 1871 and handed over to the community of Löcknitz. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 and the associated German unification , with the establishment of the German Empire through the Little German Solution , France's reparation payments of 5 billion francs to Germany resulted in a strong upswing in the German economy, in the so-called "Gründerzeit" or the founding years . Löcknitz also benefited from this economic upswing, so that from 1890 onwards, along Chausseestrasse, the main street through the town, not only the first brick-walled houses, smaller department stores, shops and businesses were built, but also the first industrial operations that gave the town its urban character let more and more emerge. In 1885 an iron foundry and a dairy were built in the village, and in 1882 and 1895 a total of three sawmills and a gas plant. There has been a savings bank in Löcknitz since 1881 until today. Right next to the newly built church on the market square, in 1893, after the old parish barn had been completely destroyed in a fire, a new school building for the community of Löcknitz was built in its place, today's community center ( old school ). On the occasion of the Löcknitz shooting festival in 1897, an oak was planted on the market square next to the church on Chausseestrasse, and it still stands there today. The rifle festivals in Löcknitz were held between 1870 and 1940 on the Alter Schützenplatz, in the forest northwest of the Löcknitz train station, on a rectangular square surrounded by Hudeeichen (→ see: Sights, memorials and memorials ).

From 1888 onwards, renovation and cultivation work was necessary again at the Randow, during which new drainage and drainage channels were created in the upper Randowbruch from Löcknitz to Retzin. In 1900, 1905 and 1907/08, after 1776, the Randow was again thoroughly cleaned of weeds and scrub, the river bed deepened and widened, and flood gates built so that the arable and pasture areas did not dry out in summer.

20th century

War memorial for the soldiers from Löcknitz who died in the First World War

German Empire and First World War

Between 1910 and 1911/12 there were numerous fires in Löcknitz along Chausseestrasse in which many of the old houses still standing there, some of which were still made of wood and with an adobe framework, burned down. Even then it was assumed that a so-called beautification association through "warm renovations" was responsible for it. As a result, however, new residential and commercial buildings made of brick masonry were built almost continuously along Chausseestrasse, giving Löcknitz a distinctly urban character and giving the main road running through the town a unified and tidy look. The anecdote about the Löcknitz night watchman Bartel comes from this time (→ see: Sights, memorials and memorials ). In 1913 Löcknitz was also connected to the electricity grid. As early as the Middle Ages, Löcknitz was and is occasionally still called a city. However, due to the never granted privilege of market rights and thus the lack of a market town, the place had never had city rights. Nevertheless, the place had more urban than village character in the middle / end of the 19th century and from the beginning of the 20th century and until today. This also contributed to the fact that Löcknitz was expanded shortly before the beginning of the First World War and in the 1920s / 30s with new streets and housing developments, and so the population steadily increased. As early as 1911, on the outskirts of Löcknitz in the direction of Boock and Rothenklempenow, behind the bridge over the Plöwen's drainage canal, which is also known as the Schafsgraben , the so-called Löcknitzer Kamp was a new small settlement, where a hemp factory was also built in 1916 . Around 1920 the first houses were built behind the train station near the Schmoktanger in the forest path and in its continuation around 1938 the forest settlement on the Waldessaum.

During the First World War from 1914 to 1918 Löcknitz was not affected by combat operations or the effects of war. However, the place still had victims. Of the 2,400 inhabitants Löcknitz had in 1918, 1,176 were male. Of those who were drafted into the Royal Prussian Army or the German Army , 79 soldiers had died and 36 were seriously wounded by the end of the war. To this day, a war memorial on the Löcknitzer See reminds of them with the listing of all 79 names of the fallen soldiers from Löcknitz (→ see: Sights, memorials and memorials ).

Weimar Republic

With the end of the First World War, the outbreak of the November Revolution , the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the proclamation of the republic in November 1918, the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and the Spartakusbund also formed in Löcknitz around the turn of the year 1918/19 a local group of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) founded. During the entire time of the Weimar Republic , it represented a strong political force in the place, in which the workers of the industrial companies of the place had come together. During the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch in March 1920 there were also clashes between right-wing conservative troops and left-wing workers' organizations in the Löcknitz area. The right-wing units and conservative student associations coming from Greifswald met the left-wing workers' associations coming from Löcknitz between the villages of Mewegen and Blankensee , where there was a gun battle with several injured. The Salzow estate was also occupied by armed workers from Löcknitz during these days and its owner was temporarily arrested, as he was suspected of supporting the right-wing conservative coup. In 1921 the community of Löcknitz, which had grown significantly in the meantime, set up a compulsory fire brigade , which is considered the birth of today's Löcknitz volunteer fire brigade . In 1928 and 1935, Chausseestrasse in Löcknitz was repaved and the sidewalks on the sides were given step plates, while the side streets were paved. In 1928 the Chausseestrasse was paved in a first section from the Bollbrücke on the road bridge over the Randow to the market square at the church and in 1935 in a second section from there to the gymnasium built in 1930 / 31–1933 and the culture hall still standing today at the end of the town from Löcknitz towards Stettin. Combined with the construction of the water tower at the train station between 1926 and 1928 and the laying of the first water pipes in Löcknitz, this measure contributed to a much better road through Löcknitz and significantly improved both the appearance of the town and the quality of life in the town. In the 1920s, club life also flourished in Löcknitz. There were 6 different citizens 'and workers' sports clubs such as the ASV Freie Turnerschaft 1920, the ASV Fichte Rot Sport 1930, the cycling club Solidarität 1930, the Deutsche Turnerschaft / Blaue Turnerschaft 1888, the SV Vorwärts Löcknitz 1920 and the swimming club Triton . There were also numerous sports facilities in town, such as sports, tennis and shooting ranges, the bathing establishment and a bowling alley. The two local choral societies, Blauer Gesangsverein 1880 and Roter Gesangsverein 1920, also played an important role in cultural life .

Under the motto "Löcknitz - a place of relaxation: water, forest and fresh air", the place became a recognized and well-known climatic health resort in Pomerania in 1930 . As a local recreation area, it was particularly popular with the population of the large city of Szczecin, only 25 kilometers away. The Löcknitzer See with the bathing establishment on the Thousand Year Oak on the Rötberg , built in 1915 , the wooded area around Löcknitz and the Haus am See , built in 1926 and still in existence today, with the Seeblick restaurant , the lake promenade and the one there, also new in 1926, on the Seeberg were very popular The Löcknitz bathing establishment was built and is still located there today, which was completed in 1935 with the construction of jetties and a diving tower. In connection with this, wealthy citizens and business people from Szczecin built several villas for their weekend stays in Löcknitz, both on Chausseestrasse in the area of ​​today's Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse and Erwin-Fischer-Strasse, the so-called villa district, as well as in Area of ​​Ernst-Thälmann-Straße, what was then Bahnhofsstraße. Most of these villas are still there today and are on the list of architectural monuments in Löcknitz . Basically, Löcknitz experienced a renewed and rapid economic upswing in the 1930s after the end of the First World War in 1918, the economic and political crisis years of the Weimar Republic at the beginning of the 1920s combined with the high German reparation payments in the course of the Versailles Treaty and the global economic crisis from 1929/30 . In the 1930s / 40s, Löcknitz had a good 70 hotels, restaurants, department stores, shops and stores, 35 handicraft businesses and a total of 5 larger industrial companies with two sawmills, a furniture factory, a construction company and a dairy. In addition, 10 clothing tailors in the village produced large quantities of clothing and fabric items for shops in Szczecin. In 1932 the municipality of Löcknitz consisted of a total of 5 residential areas (Löcknitz, Forsthaus Löcknitz, Fischerhaus, Johannisberg and Gut Salzow) on an area of ​​16.2 km². In addition, Löcknitz was the seat of the office of the same name, Löcknitz, which was headed by an honorary chief elected for six years. At that time the municipalities of Bismark, Grambow, Löcknitz, Plöwen, Ramin and Retzin belonged to the district of Löcknitz.

Third Reich

With the rise of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) under Adolf Hitler and its electoral successes in the Reichstag elections from 1930 onwards , clashes with the left party campaign organizations of the KPD occurred between their right-wing paramilitary party organizations, the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Sturmabteilung (SA), like the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD) . After the KJVD's leaflet campaign in Löcknitz against fascism , National Socialism and the NSDAP, clashes broke out in Löcknitz for the first time in June 1932. In the process, SA men devastated the apartments of KPD members and workers, stormed the KPD's meeting place on the Bollbrücke and tried unsuccessfully to set it on fire. With the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists of the NSDAP under Hitler in January 1933, the KPD local group in Löcknitz held its last official meeting that same month. Among other things, it was decided to go underground and to continue the fight against the Nazi regime there in coordination and on the orders of the KPD underground organization already operating in Stettin. However, after the KPD was initially excluded from the Reichstag in March 1933 and banned in May and its members were systematically persecuted, the last KPD functionaries, including Gustav and Hermann Roggow, also in Löcknitz, were arrested relatively quickly by June 1933.

There has been a Jewish community in Löcknitz since at least the 19th century. In 1883 a total of 11 Jewish men from Löcknitz are known who belonged to the Jewish community of Pasewalk. Until 1890 the Jewish community of Löcknitz was so large that in September of that year a branch community of the Jewish community Pasewalk was set up and it was also agreed that the Pasewalker Rabbi S. Grünfeld would conduct the services as well as elementary and religious instruction in Löcknitz. In 1925 the Jewish community in Löcknitz counted a total of 37 people, while in a list of members of the community Pasewalk from February 1933 in Löcknitz 9 Jewish men are mentioned. With the seizure of power by the National Socialists and during the period of National Socialism from 1933 to 1945, the total number of members of the Löcknitz Jewish community fell to around 17 to 20 people by 1938/39. At the time, the shop of the Jewish family Schwarzweiß was located on the corner of today's Chausseestraße / Straße der Republik, which also housed the prayer room of the small Jewish community in the town. In the course of the November pogroms in 1938 and the news of the first acts of violence against Jews in Stettin, the Jewish families of Löcknitz, such as the Scharlachs, Schwarzweiß, Wolfsfelds, Feinbergs and Leskes, hid in their apartments or in attics. On 9/10 November 1938 there was a storm, the looting and destruction of Jewish shops, property and the prayer room also in Löcknitz. SS and SA men broke the window panes of the Jewish shops, desecrated the prayer room, burned books, religious objects and furniture on Löcknitzer Chausseestrasse and tore the hexagonal Star of David from the house wall on Chausseestrasse 22. The Jewish watchmaker Feinberg was also there picked up, abused, brutally dragged down Chausseestrasse and publicly mistreated. When exactly the evacuation and deportation of the Jewish citizens from Löcknitz took place is not clear, only that this took place shortly after the beginning of the Second World War in 1939 within one night. They were brought to the Szczecin freight station, loaded there and then taken east to the Government General established there after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 . The remaining household effects and other property of the Löcknitz Jews were then publicly auctioned off and bought by their former neighbors in the village. Max Wolfsfeld, a businessman from Löcknitz, is known from a list of the Lublin Jewish Council from February 1940 that he and his wife and two daughters were deported to the Lublin district, to the area around the cities of Piaski and Bełżyce . Only Simon Schwarzweiß from Löcknitz is known to have managed to flee to Argentina in time, while most of his family members perished in the Nazi regime's concentration camps after the deportation. In 1988 a memorial was erected in memory of the Jewish community and their persecution, expulsion and murder on the site of the former business of the Jewish family Schwarzweiß and the former prayer room of the Jewish community of Löcknitz (→ see sights, memorials and memorials )

As part of the ongoing upgrade of the Armed Forces 1938 was near Löcknitz, on the road to Rothenklempenow behind the branch to Boock, munitions plant (Muna) of the Armed forces of the Army of Wehrmacht built. Administration buildings, residential barracks and countless concrete bunkers and shelters were built on a 5-kilometer by 3-kilometer forest area between the villages of Löcknitz, Boock and Rothenklempenow. In these, the explosives and ammunition parts assembled in the Sprengstofffabrik Torgelow , a sister factory of the Sprengstofffabrik Ueckermünde , which both belonged to Deutsche Sprengchemie GmbH (DSC), a subsidiary of the Westfälisch-Anhaltische Sprengstoff-Actien-Gesellschaft (WASAG) , were assembled , stored and loaded as required. In the Heeres-Munitionsanstalt Löcknitz, the dangerous yellow cross gas, better known as mustard gas , was filled into various types of ammunition. In shifts around the clock, day and night, a total of around 2,000 people from Löcknitz and the surrounding villages as well as from Stettin worked in the MunA, which made it the largest employer in the area shortly before and during the Second World War. After the western campaign of the German Wehrmacht in 1940, French and Belgian prisoners of war were used to build a solid concrete slab road from Löcknitz and Löcknitzer Kamp to the army ammunition plant and to Boock and Rothenklempenow as slave labor . In the area from Löcknitz to Löcknitzer Kamp, this concrete slab road was only replaced by a completely new asphalt road in 2012/13 ; from Löcknitzer Kamp to Boock and Rothenklempenow, however, it still exists, but was covered with asphalt as early as the 1990s and most recently in 2011 .

Was on 15 October 1939 in an administrative reform by the United-Szczecin-law of the former urban district of Stettin by the incorporation of two cities and 36 municipalities within 10 kilometers around the city to large-Stettin . At the same time, the Randow district was dissolved and its southern part was incorporated into the Greifenhagen district and the northern part was incorporated into the Ueckermünde district. From 1939 Löcknitz belonged to the district of Ueckermünde in the administrative district of Stettin in the province of Pomerania .

Second World War

German soldier cemetery in the Löcknitz cemetery

In the last days of the Second World War from 1939 to 1945, Löcknitz was still included in the main battle line of the German Wehrmacht on the Randow defense line in April 1945 . The advancing Soviet troops of the Red Army , which had already conquered Stettin and crossed the Oder , were to be stopped with anti-tank barriers on the Randow in Löcknitz, for which the German civil and military authorities had issued a total evacuation order on April 25, 1945. A surrender of the place demanded by the Soviet troops on April 26, 1945 by dropping leaflets was not obeyed by the Wehrmacht and the militarily senseless defense continued. The Soviet Air Force then bombed Löcknitz, causing severe damage to the town, so the train station and many of the residential buildings, department stores and shops on Chausseestrasse were completely destroyed. On the same day, Soviet troops and tank units advanced east of the Randow on the road between Löcknitz and Retzin and also opened fire on Löcknitz from Johannisberg. In order to defend against the Soviet troops and tanks, units of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS were holed up not only in the village on the road bridge over the Randow, but also west of the Randow, in the somewhat higher village of Bergholz, and fired from there with anti-tank cannons in the direction of Löcknitz . Since Löcknitz lies deeper in the Randowbruch, like in a cauldron, the massive shelling of each other by Soviet and German troops caused severe damage within the village, including the church with the tower and the keep and other residential buildings in Chausseestrasse shot on fire.

Soviet cemetery of honor at the exit of Löcknitz towards the left

However, the armed forces in and around Löcknitz could not hold the place long against the strong Soviet attack. After hard street fighting against the Soviet troops in the village and after the Randow Bridge had already changed hands several times, they blew up the road and railway bridge over the Randow and withdrew towards Pasewalk on the Uecker defense line. On April 27, 1945, Soviet troops then occupied the place, which ended the fighting in around Löcknitz. Then they marched on to Pasewalk and Prenzlau over the emergency bridges built to the left and right of the former Randow Bridge. Löcknitz was 66% destroyed by the effects of the war during the fighting. Of the approximately 3,200 inhabitants of Löcknitz, 137 people were killed and 65 seriously injured in the fighting. Of the 1,076 males between the ages of 18 and 60 that Löcknitz had, 200 soldiers of those who had been drafted into the Wehrmacht were killed or seriously wounded. The heavy fighting in and around Löcknitz is still evident today, on the one hand, by the German soldier cemetery in the Löcknitz cemetery and, on the other hand, by the Soviet cemetery of honor built after the end of the Second World War in 1947 on the outskirts of Löcknitz in the direction of Stettin (→ see: Sights, memorials and memorials ).

Post-war and GDR times

During the fighting around Löcknitz, hundreds of refugees from the eastern regions of the German Empire , from East Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia and the Sudetenland tried to escape through the town and over the Randow Bridge to the west. This stream of refugees continued in the weeks and months after the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht on August 8th / 9th. May 1945 continuously. As a result, not only did the population of Löcknitz rise to 4,000 by September 1945, but the number of refugees and resettlers who were housed in a reception and transit camp on the site of the former hemp factory on Löcknitzer Kamp was around 24,000 people. A typhoid and diphtheria epidemic broke out there in 1945, which claimed numerous refugee victims by 1946, as the memorial stone for the victims of war, violence and displacement in the Löcknitz cemetery still testifies to today (→ see: Sights, memorials and memorials ) . In 1945 alone, a total of 42,381 refugees were received in the camp on the Löcknitzer Kamp, cared for and later forwarded to other districts, towns and villages. Even between June and September 1946, 35,375 resettlers passed through the camp. As early as May 5, 1945, the Red Army had set up a Soviet military administration in Löcknitz and in the process requisitioned numerous houses in Bahnhofstrasse, today's Ernst-Thälmann-Strasse, and quartered the Soviet military command in the house at Ernst-Thälmann-Strasse 4 , which was demolished around 2012 because it was now in severe disrepair. In connection with this, the entire Bahnhofstrasse was also closed to all civil traffic by the Soviet military administration, which meant that the only access and approach to the Löcknitz train station was no longer possible. In the next weeks, months and years the citizens of Löcknitz illegally gained access to the train station via a narrow path from today's Straße der Republik. This path was later given the name Schwarzer Damm .

In July 1945 the state of Mecklenburg, consisting of Mecklenburg and the western part of the Prussian province of Pomerania ( Western Pomerania ), was founded. The eastern part of the Prussian province of Pomerania ( Hinterpommern ) including the city of Stettin and the surrounding area was placed under Polish administration. From the German part of the old Randow district to the west of the Oder, a new Randow district was formed, to which Löcknitz again belonged, which brought the place back to the immediate border with only 11 km away. After several changes of the district seat in the next few months, first from Stettin to Pölitz , later to Hohenholz near Penkun, the district seat of the Randow district became on 2/3. Moved to Löcknitz in October 1945, where he remained until 1950. The district administration was at the time on the Löcknitzer Kamp in an administration building of the former hemp factory. With the GDR district reform in 1950 , the Randow district was dissolved for the second time after 1939 and Löcknitz was added to the newly formed Pasewalk district. On July 1, 1950, the previously independent municipality Gorkow was incorporated. Due to the dissolution of the states and the formation of the districts in the GDR in July 1952 , Löcknitz and the Pasewalk district now belonged to the Neubrandenburg district until 1990 .

Löcknitzer See as a popular meeting place
Open-air stage on the Löcknitzer See

Since 1990

In 1990, with German reunification, the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was rebuilt for the second time. As a result of the district reform in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in 1994, the three GDR districts Pasewalk , Ueckermünde and Strasburg formed the new district of Uecker-Randow , to which Löcknitz belonged until 2011. As a result of another district reform in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in 2011 , Löcknitz has since been part of the new district of Western Pomerania-Greifswald .

Since 1997, the historic town center in Löcknitz has been thoroughly renovated as part of urban development funding; the cityscape has improved a lot. Today the octagonal keep of the former medieval castle still stands in Schlossstrasse as a rebuilt and renovated monument. The castle itself had been unused since the late 1960s, left to decay and blown up in the 1980s.

800th anniversary celebration 2012

The 800th anniversary of Löcknitz was celebrated with numerous events from June 1st to 3rd, 2012. The first day of the festival weekend began with the traditional children's festival and a torchlight procession through the village and sounded with a concert by the Löcknitzer Mandolinenorchester '63 e. V. from. On June 2nd, a large historical parade took place through the entire place with representations, pictures, costumes and vehicles on the history of Löcknitz, in which over 1000 residents took part as amateur actors and delegations from the twin cities. While the ceremony was then held in the Löcknitz church, a program of events began in parallel on the castle grounds and at the keep. In the evening a colorful fireworks display was presented over the Löcknitzer See and an anniversary party organized by the radio station Ostseewelle took place. The third and last day of the festival weekend ended with further events on the castle grounds, in the lido and on the open-air stage. The festival weekend was disrupted by a group of neo-Nazis and NPD supporters who, among other things, disguised themselves in SS and Wehrmacht uniforms representing the period between 1933 and 1945, were allowed to participate in the parade on June 2nd, subject to the conditions of the authorities.

Population development

Following the trend in Western Pomerania, the number of residents in Löcknitz also fell steadily after 1990. Since Poland joined the European Union in 2004 and the Schengen area in 2007 , the number of inhabitants has slowly increased again, as Löcknitz is increasingly in demand as a place of residence in the cross-border metropolitan region of Szczecin .

year Residents source
1862 1,144
1864 1,416
1910 1,666 *
1918 2,400
1925 2,205
1933 2,361
1939 2,681
1944 3,200
1945 > 4,000
1957 3,966
1962 3,651
year Residents source
1990 3,699
1995 3,413
2000 3,195
2005 2,904
2010 3,021
2015 3,192
* Dorf Löcknitz (1,661 inhabitants), estate district Domain Löcknitz (0 inhabitants) and forest estate district Löcknitz (5 inhabitants)

History of the Gorkow district

Gorkower Feldsteinkirche

Gorkow is a Wendish-Slavic settlement and is called Gorika in Slavic , which means little mountain . At the time of the medieval East German settlement , the only way to Gorkow was through the so-called Moosbruch . In the course of the German settlement and the development of the country under German law, Gorkow became a round village . Like Boock and Mewegen, Gorkow belonged as a fiefdom to the nearby Rothenklempenow Castle , which was owned by the old Pomeranian noble family von Eickstedt , who were first mentioned here in 1309.

In the center of Gorkow there is a towerless stone church , which dates back to the Middle Ages, originally formed a fortified church together with the churchyard wall and was converted to Baroque style in 1704 and reshaped with a half-hip roof. The church was built from a mixed masonry of field and brick and was originally plastered. The church tower was burned down by lightning in 1822 and was not rebuilt. The bell chair, which has been free-standing since then, with two iron bells from 1800 by the Royal Bell Foundry Berlin, was re-inaugurated in 2000 after its renovation.

Old village smithy in Gorkow

The walls of the flat-roofed interior are painted with illusionistic pillars and curtain arches in pilasters . Christ is depicted in the center of the painted coffered ceiling from 1704. The entire ceiling was preserved in 2001. The pulpit altar, which dates from the beginning of the 18th century, has a pulpit between free-standing columns. The railing of the basket is decorated with painted adicular frames. The box stalls come from the same time. The small organ by Barnim Grüneberg from Szczecin, with a three-part prospectus, dates from 1908 and is functional. In the 1990s the church had to be closed because of its desolate condition. The damage has now been repaired and visitors can visit the church again. From the outside, the church of Gorkow, on which there is a small, also somewhat dilapidated, historical cemetery, is today, however, still in a rather needy state.

The approximately 200-meter-long village street of Gorkow, which runs on an embankment from the church at the end of the village in the direction of Rothenklempenow to the Alte Schmiede at the end of the village to Löcknitz, was paved as early as 1862 and redesigned into an avenue in 1896 by planting linden trees. The village smithy, which still stands today, was also built in 1865 and was completely renovated in 1999. Gorkow received a new schoolhouse in 1892 after the old schoolhouse, which was located east of the church in front of the church and cemetery wall, had been demolished and a new residential building had been built from the stones at the exit to Dorotheenwalde / Rothenklempenow. The population of Gorkow stagnated and in 1910 totaled 166 inhabitants, while in 1925 it was 175 inhabitants who lived in 19 houses with 35 households, but then slowly decreased from 147 inhabitants in 1933 to 136 inhabitants in 1939. The previously independent community of Gorkow was incorporated into Löcknitz on July 1, 1950, with a size of 6.6 km².

History of the district of Salzow and the Johanneshof

Gut Salzow

Area with entrance gate to the former Salzow estate on Salzower Weg

The place name Salzow is probably derived from the Slavic term Salo , which means something like thin ice with which the nearby Schillerbach occasionally freezes over in winter, or fat or tallow . Salzow, which was just a few hundred meters east of the road from Löcknitz to Retzin in a small wooded area on Salzower Weg just behind the road bridge over the Schillerbach, had been a manor and farm of the von Ramin auf Schmagerow , a branch line of the Pomeranian noble family von Ramin , since the Middle Ages , with the parent company of the same name in Ramin between Löcknitz and Penkun.

1865 which included estates Salzow and Schmagerow together 3,110 acre of land with about 1600 animals (horses, pigs, cows, sheep) of more than 60 officials of the two estates were managed the. The Salzow estate alone comprised four residential buildings and seven farm buildings in which 38 estate employees lived and worked. Together with Schmagerow, Salzow had their own school, which was located on the Schmagerow estate. Gut Salzow formed its own manor district with a total of 29 inhabitants in 1910, but the manorial jurisdiction and police power was exercised by the respective landlord from Gut Schmagerow. In the course of the Kapp-Lüttwitz putsch in March 1920, the Salzow estate was occupied by armed workers from Löcknitz and its owner Lüder was temporarily arrested because he was suspected of supporting the right-wing conservative putsch. With the extensive dissolution of the manor districts in the Free State of Prussia between 1928 and 1930 by the "Law on the Regulation of Various Points of Municipal Constitutional Law" of December 27, 1927 with effect from September 30, 1928, the then independent Salzow manor district initially became a place of residence affiliated to the community of Löcknitz. In the course of the introduction of the unified German municipal code of January 30, 1935 and the “Ordinance on manor districts and parish -free land” of 1938, the Salzow manor district was finally dissolved and since then has been part of the Löcknitz community. Until the end of the Second World War in 1945, the farmer Lüder remained in possession of the Salzow estate, which comprises a good 250 hectares of arable land, forest and meadows.

Garbage dump on the site of the former Salzow estate

In the course of the establishment of the four Allied occupation zones in Germany at the end of the war in 1945, a land reform was carried out in the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ) in September 1945 . As a result, the farmer Lüder in Salzow was also expropriated by the Soviet military administration in Germany (SMAD) . A short time later he was shot by Soviet soldiers under circumstances that have not yet been fully clarified. Lueders body was initially buried on the road right behind the manor house under an oak tree and only later, when his wife and children in the Federal Republic of Germany had moved, reburied at the cemetery Löcknitzer. The 250-hectare estate, however, was divided into plots of 10 hectares and 22 evacuees forgive and Gutsarbeiterfamilien, the 1954 Agricultural Production Cooperative (LPG) Erwin Fischer founded. Salzow, which in 1957 consisted of 12 residential buildings, 12 stables and farm buildings as well as a grocery store, merged with the LPG Karl Liebknecht in Löcknitz in 1958 . From the end of the 1960s, however, new restructuring took place in the collectivized agriculture of the GDR . Within the LPGs and Nationally Owned Goods (VEGs), livestock husbandry and field management or plant production have now been separated and the latter have been combined in Cooperative Plant Production Departments (KAP) . For the relatively small Salzow, whose former estate was already badly run down until the mid-1970s, this meant that livestock farming was now completely abandoned and the entire field management and plant production with that of the other surrounding communities were combined in one KAP and was centralized. As a result, Salzow not only lost its importance as a place of residence, but also no longer operated profitably, which is why field management and plant production were discontinued in the mid / late 1970s.

Remnants of the wall from the stables of the former Salzow estate

1978/79 the last residents left Salzow and by 1980 the now vacant houses and stables were in serious disrepair. Between 1980 and 1983, the residents of the surrounding villages supplied themselves on a large scale with building materials that were already scarce in the GDR, directly by dismantling and tearing down the buildings in Salzow, which caused the place to deteriorate more and more. By 1983 the entire former Salzow estate was already so dilapidated that it was initially blocked by the building authorities and then the manor house, all residential buildings, the massive stables and farm buildings as well as the park were completely demolished and leveled. At the end of the 1980s, the entire area of ​​the former Salzow estate was fenced in and used as a garbage dump. Today only the fence standing at this point with an entrance gate, a large pile of rubble and rubbish and some remains of the wall testify to the place Salzow and the estate.

Johanneshof

Stones and debris from the Johanneshof

The Johanneshof, which was located directly at the eastern end of the Löcknitzer See on the Johannesberg of the same name, on the right side a few hundred meters before the sharp right-hand bend on the country road from Löcknitz to Retzin, experienced a fate similar to that of Gut Salzow, which is not far away. Until the beginning of the 1950s, the Johanneshof belonged to the large farmer Vogel, who left his farm behind due to the beginning collectivization of agriculture in the GDR and the associated political pressure and fled to the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1955 the Johanneshof was taken over by the LPG and it was managed and inhabited until the 1970s. With the introduction of the Cooperative Plant Production Department (KAP), however, the Johanneshof was given up due to its small size. Since 1980 the house, the stables, the barn and the farm building have increasingly deteriorated. The municipality of Löcknitz originally planned to convert the Johanneshof into a holiday property in the 1980s and even had building materials delivered. However, some of these were stolen and the Johanneshof buildings were also used more and more for illegal building materials and were severely damaged as a result. Finally, the Johanneshof was closed by the building authorities in 1982 and a little later completely demolished, with the rubble and remains lying unmoved on the spot. From 1986 the property of the former Johanneshof, which was now overgrown with undergrowth, and the entire Johannesberg were used by the community of Löcknitz as a storage place for rubble and garbage. Today only stone rubble and a few remains of the wall are evidence of the Johanneshof on the Johannesberg.

Millennial oak

The thousand-year-old oak or Irmtrud's oak on the Löcknitzer See , the landmark of Löcknitz, symbolically represented as an oak leaf on the Löcknitzer coat of arms , was completely renovated in April / May 1995 and supplemented by a memorial stone as a field stone with a bronze plate embedded in it with the inscription:

THE LÖCKNITZER OAK // A THOUSAND TIMES OF SPRING / BREWED THROUGH YOUR LEAVES / THOUGHT A THOUSAND TIMES YOU HAVE TOOLED / THE AUTUMN STORM / HAVE EXPERIENCED PEACE / AND BORED WAR / LAUGHED AND JOY GIVEN PFICH AND GIVES PFICH FOR ALSO / BAND EMB / YOU RESISTANCE AND LOVE / TO OUR HOME COUNTRY // THAT DAMAGED THROUGH LIGHTNING STRIKES, STORMS AND FIRE / SERIOUSLY DAMAGED MILLENARY OAK / WAS REFURBISHED IN A COMMUNITY ACTION / IN APRIL-MAY 1995 / INVESTMENT IN WAREN, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM. FUNDING ASSOCIATION FOR NATURE PROTECTION UECKER-RANDOW EV / PARTNER CIRCLE STORMARN, SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN / SPARKASSE STORMARN, SPARKASSE UECKER-RANDOW. In April 2000, an eight-year-old offshoot of the thousand-year-old oak was planted as the “Millennium Oak” at the turn of the millennium in the parking lot at “Haus am See” / corner of Straße Am See and at the same time a small memorial stone in the form of a field stone and a bronze plate embedded in it was erected with the Inscription: MILLENNIUM OAK / AS A DIRECT OFFSET OF THE / 1000-YEAR-OLD OAK I WAS PLANTED HERE / ON 04/29/2000. With the millennial oak or the so-called "Irmtruds oak", however, there is also connected "The legend of the Löcknitz millennial oak" about a campaign by Christian feudal lords against a Slavic temple castle near Löcknitz and thus part of the founding myth of the village of Löcknitz:
“ With the Christianization of the Slavs, Bishop Otto von Bamberg began his missionary trips to Pomerania in 1124 . At the same time, the Pomeranian Duke Wartislaw I installed the Slavic bailiff "Conrad de Lokeniz" in Löcknitz , who sympathized with Christianity . However, the Slavic inhabitants of the settlement, from which the village of Löcknitz later developed, rejected the Christian faith and followed their temple priest Sweno as well as their Slavic myths, religious ideas and customs that they practiced in their temple castle on Leichensee (Slavic castle wall Retzin). In 1127 bailiff Conrad de Lokeniz expected a visit from relatives from Szczecin. The siblings Irmtrud and Bornat were on their way to see their uncle in Löcknitz. Shortly before the "Lokenitza" castle, however, both were captured by the Slavic residents of the settlement on behalf of the temple priest. For a large ransom, the bailiff managed to buy his niece Irmtrud out, but his nephew Bornat remained in captivity. This attack was now a welcome opportunity to remove the last Slavic bulwark and "pagan" beliefs in this area. Burgvogt Conrad de Lokeniz therefore requested help from the Pomeranian Duke Wartislaw, who sent an army which arrived in Löcknitz in the winter of 1127/28 together with Bishop Otto von Bamberg. The army advanced across the frozen corpse lake against the Slavic Tempelburg. At a safe distance, on this side of the little distant Löcknitzer See , Irmtrud observed the course of the fight, during which the Slavic temple castle and the wooden statue of the gods of the three-headed “ Triglaw ”, the lord of heaven, earth and underworld, soon went up in flames. While the temple priest Sweno was looking for death in the water, Bornat was saved. In the same place where Irmtrud had observed the course of the fight, she planted a small oak in 1128, which the Löcknitz people today know as the “Thousand Year Oak” or “Irmtrud's Oak”. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Friends of Burgfried Löcknitz. (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). P. 7 and 10-12.
  2. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 7-12 and 28.
  3. ↑ Elector Albrecht III. Achilles of Brandenburg on June 26, 1479 in a letter to Elector Ernst von Sachsen , quoted from: Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). P. 15.
  4. ↑ a b Lemcke: The architectural and art monuments of the administrative district of Stettin. Pp. 68-70.
  5. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 10-17.
  6. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 17-18.
  7. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 18-23.
  8. ↑ Kleemann: Under the eagle with scepter and sword. Pp. 37-45.
  9. ^ A b Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Hrsg.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). P. 24.
  10. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). P. 24 and 26th
  11. ↑ Jany: History of the Prussian Army. P. 238.
  12. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 24-25.
  13. ↑ Entry in the church book of the community Löcknitz from 1672, quoted from: Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). P. 22.
  14. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part III). P. 7.
  15. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 15, 24 and 26-27.
  16. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 29-30.
  17. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). P. 27 and 61.
  18. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). P. 22 and 27-30.
  19. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 32-33.
  20. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 31-32.
  21. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). P. 33 and 43-44.
  22. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 33-37.
  23. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 37-39.
  24. ↑ Friedrich August Schmidt (ed.): New Nekrolog der Deutschen , Vol. 10, 2nd part, printed and published by Bernhard Friedrich Voigt, Ilmenau 1834, pp. 675–676; Digitized
  25. ^ Ernst Amandus Zuchold: Bibliotheca Theologica, 1st volume: AK , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht's Verlag, Göttingen 1864, p. 199.
  26. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 38-42.
  27. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 43-44 and 47.
  28. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 45-52 and 61.
  29. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 52-53.
  30. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). P. 52 and 54.
  31. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). P. 49 and 61.
  32. ^ A b Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Hrsg.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). P. 54.
  33. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). P. 55.
  34. ↑ Löcknitz volunteer fire department
  35. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 57-60.
  36. ^ VfB Pommern Löcknitz . History. ( Memento from September 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  37. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 57, 60-64.
  38. ^ Pomeranian Information System (ISP). The community of Löcknitz.
  39. ^ A b Pomeranian Information System (ISP). The place of residence Löcknitz.
  40. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 57, 64-65.
  41. ^ Karge, Rübesamen, Wagner (ed.): Inventory of Politischer Memoriale. Pp. 586-587.
  42. ↑ Endlich, Goldenbogen, Herlemann and others: Memorials for the victims of National Socialism. P. 427.
  43. ↑ Wolfgang Wilhelmus: Jews in Western Pomerania (Contributions to the History of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, No. 8) , Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Landesbüro Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schwerin 2007, pp. 56, 60, 62, 69, 89, 93 and 99. (PDF; 3.56 MB)
  44. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). P. 65.
  45. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 64-66.
  46. ^ A b c d e Michael Rademacher: German administrative history from the unification of the empire in 1871 to the reunification in 1990. Randow district. (Online material for the dissertation, Osnabrück 2006).
  47. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 66-67.
  48. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part II). P. 5.
  49. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part II). Pp. 16-17.
  50. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part II). P. 7.
  51. ↑ Report of the Mayor Lothar Meistring the parade. In: Community of Löcknitz Online. July 10, 2012, accessed December 30, 2013 .
  52. ↑ Löcknitz lets rights run with the parade. In: NDR Online . June 14, 2012, archived from the original on August 13, 2012 ; accessed on December 30, 2013 .
  53. ^ Michael Sontheimer: Structure East. Farewell to prejudices. In: Spiegel Online . February 25, 2008, accessed December 27, 2013 .
  54. ↑ Birk Meinhardt: City, Country, Frustration. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. 143/2008 of June 21, 2008, p. 3.
  55. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). P. 40.
  56. ↑ a b Senckpiel: The history of the village of Löcknitz : historical overview table (Modern Age II: from 1945).
  57. ^ A b c Register of municipalities in Germany 1900. Randow district.
  58. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). P. 52.
  59. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part II). P. 25.
  60. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part III). P. 30.
  61. ↑ a b c d e Population on December 31. according to communities and districts. (No longer available online.) In: SIS-Online - Statistisches Informationssystem. Statistical Office MV, archived from the original on December 26, 2017 ; Retrieved December 25, 2017 .
  62. ↑ a b Official notice of the office of Löcknitz-Penkun, Vol. 1, No. 04, April 11, 2006, pp. 21-22. ( Memento of April 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.25 MB)
  63. ^ Churches in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Gorkow village church.
  64. ^ Pomeranian Information System (ISP). The community of Gorkow.
  65. ^ Official notice of the office Löcknitz-Penkun, year 1, no.05, May 9, 2006, p. 22. (PDF; 933 kB)
  66. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz (Ed.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part II). Pp. 45-46.
  67. ↑ Löcknitz community. Worth seeing.
  68. ^ Official notice of the office Löcknitz-Penkun, Volume 2, No. 03, March 6, 2007, pp. 13-14. (PDF; 1.79 MB)
  69. ↑ Official notice of the office Löcknitz-Penkun, Vol. 2, No. 04, April 3, 2007, p. 18. (PDF; 2.02 MB)
  70. ^ Official notice of the office Löcknitz-Penkun, Vol. 2, No. 05, May 8, 2007, pp. 14–15. (PDF; 1.75 MB)
  71. ^ Förderverein Burgfried Löcknitz eV (Hrsg.): Ortschronik von Löcknitz (Part I). Pp. 8-11.
  72. ^ Stange: The secret and the uncanny between Ueckermünde and Penkun. Pp. 114-118.
  73. ↑ Löcknitz community. Legends and stories.