Marquardt Castle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marquardt Castle

The Marquardt Castle is a castle, which is about 15 km north-west from the center of Potsdam in the district Marquardt is. The castle has an eventful history as a place of residence or summer residence for noble or upper-class owners, as well as a hotel, hospital and university institute, among other things. Today the castle is used for events (celebratory occasions such as weddings and themed gastronomy ).

Aristocratic residence

The original place name Skoryn (Old Wendish, later Germanized to Schorin ) for Marquardt is first mentioned in a document in 1313. The ownership structure of the associated manor house or manor house has since been known completely. Since 1375 there have been two manors in changing family ownership. In 1660 Moritz Andreas von Wartenberg bought both farms and turned them into a manor . One of the manor houses was converted into a manor house, the other served as the seat of the estate administration. The former mansion, later Castle, consisted of a basement normal height and an overlying mezzanine .

The last member of the von Wartenberg family died in 1704 without any descendants. The next owner and feudal lord was Marquard Ludwig von Printzen (1675–1725), who, as a busy public servant - he was a secret council of state and war council and director of feudal affairs - rarely stayed on his estate. At his request, King Frederick I allowed him to rename the property after his first name. As early as 1708, the baron sold what was now the Marquard estate, after which Carow (today's Karow near Genthin ) with its castle, church and hereditary burial became his family seat.

Between 1708 and 1781 Marquard was owned by the von Wyckersloot family, who had moved from the Lower Rhine region. By royal order of 1763, silkworms were farmed on the property, which was then considerably expanded . A mulberry plantation was created northeast of the manor house for this purpose . In the third generation, the family was so deeply in debt that they had to sell Marquard at a loss. Theodor Fontane (1819–1898) noted in the volume Havelland of his walks through the Mark Brandenburg (1862–1889) that the ownership structure, which had not been constant until now, has now changed so frequently that “in the short period from 1781 to 1795 Marquardt was in the hands of four different families. The proximity of Potsdam played a role in this. Those who were close to the court, or those who were not on duty, found it difficult to withdraw completely from the sun, preferred the nearby towns. Marquardt was among them. Courtiers bought it, took their villeggiatur here and sold it again. ”A major fire in 1791 destroyed several courtyards in the village, but also large parts of the manor house and the associated farmyard.

In 1795 General Hans Rudolf von Bischoffwerder (1741–1803) became the new owner of Marquard, a close confidante and advisor to King Friedrich Wilhelm II (1744–1797). Marquard became the scene of a bizarre episode in Prussian history for a short time. Bischoffwerder had felt drawn to occult phenomena throughout his career as a soldier and in various state offices - a tendency not unusual at the time. In 1779 he joined the Order of the Rosicrucians , a mystical- religious secret society that was directed against current efforts of the Enlightenment . Together with Johann Christoph von Woellner , another high-ranking Rosicrucian, he was able to win the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm (II) as a member of the order in 1781 and influence it in the interests of the secret society, even after he was crowned king in 1786. On Marquard, Bischoffwerder had the so-called Blue Grotto set up in a tree-lined hill , a room with unusual light and color effects and with double walls. There - as in other places - the Rosicrucians held spiritualistic meetings in the presence of the light-hearted and gullible king , with apparent ghost voices and other simulated supernatural appearances. A later owner of the castle had the grotto demolished between 1860 and 1870 because it was dilapidated. Their exact location can no longer be determined today.

Bischoffwerder increased his property through acquisitions. He is said to have had a good relationship with his peasants, he reduced the taxes and demanded less camaraderie than was usual up to now. After 1795 he had the area on the lakeshore designed as an English landscape park. In 1823 his son arranged for the park to be redesigned again based on a sketch by Peter Joseph Lenné . In 1843, the pastor at the time changed the spelling of the place name - Marquard became Marquardt. Theodor Fontane stayed here three times and for the first time referred to the manor house as Marquardt Castle in his descriptions .

Bourgeois owners

The castle around 1900

After a long time as an aristocratic residence, Marquardt became the property of a bourgeois in 1860. In 1862 the local chaplain noted that Paul Tholuck, the new landowner, who “only introduced steam engines and other machines into the quiet and quiet Marquardt, destroyed all poetry and idyll. (...) There is only the principle of usefulness and everything depends on the profit, on the wallet. (...) In place of rule there were uneducated, haughty and immoral inspectors ... ".

Next owner was 1870 Commerce Carl Meyer, representative of the Essen company Krupp in Berlin, who had the castle 1879-80 rebuild as a two-storey building with seven window axes. Meyer was followed by Louis Auguste Ravené (1866–1944) as the owner in 1892 . He was a descendant of Huguenot refugees who had come to Berlin from France and who made great fortune through the wholesale trade in steel and iron, especially when the German railway network was expanded in the 19th century. He and his family lived in Marquardt mainly during the summer months. Ravené initiated further, extensive structural changes: First of all, the building was extended from 1879/80 to an L-shaped structure; a tower was added and terraces were built on the north and east sides. In a second phase of renovation in 1912/13, the Berlin architect Otto Walter added an entire wing of the building to the northwest with an oval ballroom and large - window neo-baroque facade. There were also various smaller additions and decorative elements such as putti and neo- rococo ornaments. Ravené had the park expanded and changed in places. At the world exhibition in Brussels in 1897 , he acquired the elaborately designed wrought-iron gate. Around 1900 he donated the new building of the nearby Protestant village church, in which he is buried. The architectural ensemble of that time has largely been preserved to this day.

In 1932 Ravené leased the castle to the hotel company Kempinski . The "Hotel Schloss Marquardt" with ten single and 14 double rooms, several paneled restaurants, tea and wine bars and terraces with a view of the lake and the park has developed into a popular destination, especially for wealthy Berliners.

  • Facade of the ballroom

  • Partial view of the castle

  • View to the Schlänitzsee

  • Painting by Albert Hertel , 1894

World War II and post-war period

The operations of the Kempinski Group were " aryanized " in 1937 by the National Socialists . The Aschinger AG Berlin led the hotel business in Marquardt initially continue until the plant at the beginning of World War II confiscated in 1939 and was declared a military hospital. The restaurant continued to operate to a limited extent. In March 1942 Louis Ravené sold the property, i.e. the land as well as "all of the buildings on them, in particular the castle, (...), greenhouse, summer house, distillery building , blacksmith's shop, garage with two apartments, ice cellar, bowling alley and other buildings" to the Aschinger AG.

During the Second World War, the castle was also used as a central marketing service for the army. The Soviet Red Army occupied Marquardt at the end of April 1945. The hospital was closed, the Aschinger factories were confiscated and soon afterwards expropriated. In the first post-war years , refugees from the former German areas east of the Oder found temporary accommodation in the castle and in the outbuildings . Potatoes and vegetables were grown in the larger park areas. Different users for the land and buildings followed: a school for the deaf , the Oranienburg horticultural school (until 1949), an experimental station for agrobiology (until 1951), various scientific institutions for fruit growing and cultivation. The last legal entity before the end of the GDR was LPG Obstproduktion Marquardt since 1986 .

After 1989

The "Esplanade" hotel group founded a "Schlosshotel Marquardt GmbH & Co. KG " in 1993 and planned a new hotel building on the estate. After these plans failed, the federal government temporarily had an option on the castle. In 1998 a real estate management company in Munich acquired the land from TLG Immobilien GmbH, a subsidiary of the Treuhandanstalt . The castle has now been empty for a long time. The ballroom and some side rooms can be rented for private events. After roof repairs and the removal of dry rot , users or buyers are sought. The park, which, like the castle, is a listed building, must remain open to the public in the future.

The “ Rohkunstbau ”, an international summer exhibition of contemporary art (it took place for the first time in 1994 in a shell building in the Spreewald ), was located in Marquardt Castle from 2009 to 2011. Since 1998, the castle and its surroundings have been the setting for at least twenty film and television productions or music videos , including for Scooter , Atrocity , Beatsteaks , Andrea Berg , Peter Maffay , Sarah Connor as well as Rammstein , Nightwish , Oomph! .

literature

  • M. Helwing-Pinto: Marquardt as the manor of the family v. Bischoffwerder. In: The Bear. Illustrated weekly for patriotic history. 1893, pp. 224-226.
  • Wolfgang Grittner: Marquardt Castle . Published in 2008 for the “Friends of the Palaces and Gardens of the Mark” in the Deutsche Gesellschaft e. V., OCLC 916876581 .
  • Angelika Fischer, Bernd Erhard Fischer: Marquardt: A castle in the north of Potsdam. A search for clues. arani-Verlag, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-7605-8635-X .
  • Christiane Wassmer: "Marquardt Castle" - A facet of the architectural development of the mansions in the Mark Brandenburg . Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-938262-95-8 .
  • Paul Sigel, Silke Dähmlow, Frank Seehausen, Lucas Elmenhorst: Architectural Guide Potsdam. 1st edition. Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-496-01325-7 .

Web links

Commons : Marquardt Castle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marquardt Castle. In: Falkensee currently. April 30, 2008.
  2. ^ Italian: Recreational stay in a rural area
  3. ^ Theodor Fontane: Walks through the Mark Brandenburg . Volume 3 ( Havelland ) "Potsdam and the surrounding area" - Marquardt (introduction).
  4. ^ Wolfgang Grittner: Marquardt Castle. Published in 2008 for the “Friends of the Palaces and Gardens of the Mark” in the Deutsche Gesellschaft e. V., ISBN 978-3-9812292-6-4 , p. 4.
  5. ^ History of the castle ... In: www.schloss-marquardt.com. Archived from the original on July 9, 2019 ; accessed on July 16, 2020 .
  6. ^ Wolfgang Grittner: Marquardt Castle. 2008, p. 6.
  7. ↑ Catrin During, Albrecht Ecke: Architectural Guide Potsdam: Built! Lukas, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-936872-90-3 , p. 156.
  8. ^ Wolfgang Grittner: Marquardt Castle. 2008, p. 8.
  9. ↑ Sale. In: www.schloss-marquardt.com. Archived from the original on July 9, 2019 ; accessed on July 16, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Marquardt Castle: Rohkunstbau - The power of poses and cans. Morgenpost.de, July 4, 2011.
  11. ↑ References. In: www.schloss-marquardt.com. Archived from the original on July 8, 2019 ; accessed on July 16, 2020 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 27 ′ 28.5 ″  N , 12 ° 57 ′ 47.2 ″  E