Demerthin Castle
The Demerthin Castle in the district Demerthin the community Gumtow in Prignitz in Brandenburg one of the few unaltered secular buildings of the Renaissance in the region.
history
Demerthin Castle - actually a manor house - is based on a fiefdom that came to the von Klitzing family in 1468 through Friedrich II . The family received the village and estate Demerthin, where they expanded the manor house into a Renaissance seat from the 16th century. The castle in its current form dates from 1604, relatively unchanged. The builder was Katharina von Oppen, whose husband Andreas von Klitzing left behind an economically successful estate after his death in 1586 and thus gave the widow the financial means for the new building. The founder of the building is indicated in the inscription above the portal.
The castle is a small, two-story structure with a gable roof , which has been given more bulk with large dwelling houses on the courtyard and garden side. While the garden side is structured by the three gables, but otherwise relatively unadorned, the center of the castle facing the courtyard is emphasized by a slim, hood-topped stair tower. The most striking ornament on the building is the magnificent Renaissance portal integrated into the tower with its rich sculptural decoration in mannerist forms. The courtyard facade of the palace is framed by various timber-framed farm buildings that together form a courtyard . The side buildings are not preserved in the original, but by more recent, z. Partly erected after 1950, building replaced. Behind the castle are the rudiments of the former castle park, with some very old trees.
The castle has hardly been changed in the past centuries, so that the exterior of the building is largely the same as when it was built. This is something special because most of the country houses and mansions have been stylistically adapted to the changing times and renewed or at least rebuilt and expanded over the centuries. What is interesting is the apparent similarity between the courtyard side of Demerthin and the city facade of the Königs Wusterhausen Palace , which was also built in the Margraviate of Brandenburg and around the same time.
After the Second World War
The castle was owned by the von Klitzing family until 1945, the last owner was Adda von Klitzing, nee, who was respected and popular in the region. von Rohr, who after the expropriation finally went to Marienfließ as a canoness , where she also died. After the Second World War , the Red Army took possession of the facility. The von Klitzing family was eventually expropriated and resettled in the course of the land reform . In the post-war period, the facility deteriorated more and more. The castle became the property of the municipality in 1993, a comprehensive restoration of the building began in 1992 and the facade was completed in 2004. In the future, the castle is to house a small local history museum, among other things, but the work on this has not yet been fully completed. Agricultural implements from the region are currently being exhibited on the ground floor, and further cultural usage concepts for the castle are being sought.
literature
- Monika Loddenkemper: Dermerthin. Castles and Gardens of the Mark. Friends of the Palaces and Gardens of the Mark. Nicolai, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-87584-409-2 .
- Georg Piltz, Peter Garbe: Palaces and gardens in the Mark Brandenburg . Seemann, Leipzig 1987, ISBN 3-363-00063-4 , pp. 70, 94, 195.
- Torsten Foelsch: Nobility, castles and mansions in Prignitz. A contribution to the art and cultural history of a Brandenburg landscape, Leipzig 1997
- Ernst Badstübner: Palaces of the Renaissance in the Mark Brandenburg, in: Monumenta Brandenburgica, Vol. 2, Berlin 1995
Web links
- Entry in the monument database of the State of Brandenburg
- Demerthin Castle
- Museums in Brandenburg - Demerthin
- Material on Demerthin Castle in the Duncker Collection of the Central and State Library Berlin (PDF; 267 kB)
Coordinates: 52 ° 58 ′ 17.5 ″ N , 12 ° 17 ′ 22.9 ″ E