Kummerow Castle
Castle Kummerow is a mansion in the style of the Baroque in Kummerow (at the lake) in the district of Mecklenburg Lake District in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern .
history
Ownership history
Kummerow was first mentioned in a document in 1222. The place was called Cummerow until the 20th century . Already in 1255 the place received city rights. In 1309 Heinrich von Maltzahn was Burgvogt von Kummerow and Vogt of the state of Kalden . In 1315 the Kummerow Castle was besieged but could not be captured. After 1320 the lords of Maltzahn were withdrawn from the fiefdom of the Duke of Pomerania, who gave it to the pastor of Kummerow in 1368. Around 1420 the place came back to the von Maltzahn family. In 1450 the castle and bailiwick were besieged and conquered in a Mecklenburg-Pomeranian feud. After the peace treaty on August 29, 1450, the castle, town and bailiwick of Kummerow came to Mecklenburg.
After another war, Kummerow fell back to Pomerania in 1481 and again went to the Maltzahns as a fief. From 1573 to 1671 there were protracted feuds and negotiations between the Maltzahns, the city and the Dargun monastery . The Thirty Years' War caused great devastation in Kummerow, only 16 residents survived the war. Then Kummerow came to the Danish general Adam Weiher. In 1671 Kummerow lost its town charter and the von Maltzahn family again became owners of the place, which was confirmed to them in 1741 by the new sovereign, the King of Prussia, Friedrich II .
In 1730 Schloss Kummerow was completed in the late Baroque style, or to put it more figuratively, in the typology of the Versailles model and only expanded 100 years later to include the landscape park. Time and again, the estate experienced times of orphan due to the lively fate of its owners. After the First World War, the house and the park were extensively renovated. In the Weimar Republic and during National Socialism until 1941, the estate experienced a new heyday as a large estate through Mortimer Freiherr von Maltzahn. Mortimer became the first elected mayor and adapted to the new balance of power until he was expropriated by the land reform of the early GDR.
After 1945 the castle was occupied by Soviet forces and converted into a quarantine camp for refugees and former forced laborers. In the following 40 years until 1993, the palace complex was used by the community on various occasions. A consumer outlet with an inn, the mayor's office, a primary school, a kindergarten and a high school were located here. In 1985 the facility became the property of Deutsche Post (GDR).
In 1993 it was sold in private ownership and was initially to be expanded as a hotel. However, these plans were not carried out, so that the roof structure and subsequently the rest of the building fell into disrepair and threatened to collapse. In 2011, Schloss Kummerow passed into the possession of the current owner, who renovated the castle, equipped it as a publicly accessible art gallery and used it with his photographic collection. His renovation concept encompasses traces of the past and only visibly introduces new things where imperfections have arisen. Doors and some wall paneling were left in their original state of preservation and reflect the various phases of the house's existence. Beautiful floorboards and a magnificent baroque staircase - similar to that of Ivenack Castle - testify to the splendor of the time it was built, fragments from GDR times attest to the more recent use.
Timetable
1222 First documented mention as Cummerow
1236 capture of Kummerow Castle. Johann de Mulsan (ancestor of the Maltzahns) is employed as bailiff.
Pomerania is awarded to Kummerow in 1240.
1255 Kummerow receives city rights.
1322 The Maltzahns lose the Bailiwick. Decades of rapid changes of ownership due to conflicts in the border region followed.
1481 The Maltzahns get the bailiff back in Kummerow. Conflicts follow over territorial claims and compulsory labor with the townspeople and the Dargun monastery.
1532 The hereditary marshal office of the Moltans to the east, Wolde and Kummerow is regulated. This office falls to the oldest of the sex.
1578 Hartwig Maltzahn attacks the compulsory villages and seizes the farmers after many years of disputes over compulsory labor and land appropriation.
1588 Hartwig Maltzahn begins the first witch trial against a peasant woman who is burned on the "Judgment Hill".
around 1600 The Moltzan Junker family lives in the Kummerow moated castle.
from 1618 The Thirty Years' War leads to great devastation in Kummerow. The castle was partially closed.
1652 Peace of Westphalia. Kummerow is under Swedish rule.
on 1700 Hans Jakob Maltzahn redeems the Kummerow goods.
1720 In the peace treaty between Prussia and Sweden, Kummerow fell to the Kingdom of Prussia. The Pomeranian Maltzahns came into direct fiefdom dependency on Berlin, but remained ideally committed to the Swedish crown. The youngest of three brothers, Alex Albrecht II, steps out of their ranks and swears an oath of allegiance to the King of Prussia and thus receives the Hereditary Marshal's Office.
1724 Axel Albrecht II moves to Kummerow.
1725 The medieval house with tower is located on the grounds of the Wasserburg am See. This year it burns down with all of its outbuildings. The construction of today's castle begins. The complex follows the type of the Palace of Versailles.
1730 Completion of the castle. The Axelhof dairy is born.
1734 Kummerow receives special rights to settle businesses.
1740/41 first arranged school lessons in Kummerow. The Maltzahns receive a large fiefdom from the Prussian state and are at the height of their power.
1761 Ivenack Castle goes to the 2nd son Axel Albrechts von Maltzahn.
1763 first compulsory school attendance prompted by Prussian law
1797 Comparison of inheritance between the von Maltzahn brothers.
Around 1830 the baroque palace garden was transformed into a landscape park based on ideas from Peter Joseph Lenné, in line with the taste of the times.
1857 Kummerow is owned by the chamberlain, landscape director Rudolf von Maltzahn, on full council rest in Mecklenburg. The castle is orphaned.
1895 Mortimer Bogislaw Ernst August von Maltzahn is born at Schloss Kummerow. He is the last Baron von Maltzahn at Kummerow Castle. His marriage remains childless.
1918 After the end of the First World War and the beginning of the Weimar Republic, the Maltzahns lose their inheritance rights to political offices. Mortimer von Maltzahn lives with his wife at Kummerow Castle and is redesigning the 250-year-old castle and landscape park.
until 1933 Mortimer von Maltzahn skilfully leads the estate through the world economic crisis. Politically, he is oriented towards the rising right-wing forces.
1933–1942 The castle and estate are on the economic upswing. Mortimer von Maltzahn is politically active.
from 1943 admission of evacuees and refugees.
1945 Russian units move into Kummerow. The castle and manor building serve as quarantine storage. Thousands of former forced laborers are cared for and smuggled through here. Mortimer von Maltzahn's return and arrest. Due to the refugees, the population doubles from 325 to over 700.
1947/48 The old ownership structure is dissolved and expropriated. Mortimer von Maltzahn goes to Düsseldorf and successfully operates a cleaning facility there. The residence of the castle is handed over to the community for the most diverse uses and the manor houses are owned by the LPG "Völkerfreundschaft". Both the castle and the village are being modernized and adapted to the new requirements. They will be transformed into a consumer outlet with a restaurant, mayor's office, school, kindergarten, cultural area, FDJ room, but also to residential units.
1964 Renovation of the residential building at Schloss Kummerow.
1980s roof covering from plain tiles removed and replaced with concrete blocks.
In 1985 the Deutsche Post planned to expand the castle for the combine of telecommunications as a training and recreation center.
1992 Sale of the castle to a private individual. Vacancy and decay.
2011 auctioned to the current owner. This is followed by the completion of the new roof and the former baroque dormers, which have now been reinstated.
2015 First use as an exhibition house with works by Eberhard Göschel.
2016 Opening of the photographic collection - Schloss Kummerow
Building history
Kummerow Castle, right on the shore of Lake Kummerow, was built in place of an older mansion that burned down in 1725 in the Baroque style for District Administrator Axel Albrecht von Maltzahn . A landscape park was created around the palace based on plans by Peter Joseph Lenné .
After the Maltzahn family was expropriated in 1945, the main building of the castle served as a school and community office. A sports field has been created in the landscape park. In 1964 the main building was renovated. After the fall of the Wall, renovation work began on the manor house for the planned commercial use of the privately owned facility, which was then discontinued. Since then, the architecturally valuable baroque palace has been falling into disrepair. The fragmentation of the park and the surrounding land by the municipality made a new use difficult.
In March 2011, the palace complex was put up for auction at the spring auction of Deutsche Grundstücksauktionen AG with a minimum bid of 95,000 euros and finally acquired by a Berlin company for 130,000 euros. The investor is the real estate agent Torsten Kunert from Berlin. He pursued the plan to exhibit his "photographic collection" in the castle.
After the palace was sold in March 2011, numerous fixtures from the GDR era were demolished. In April 2013, the renovation of the mansard hipped roof of the baroque building began. 30,000 hand- painted beaver tails and 20 original baroque dormers crown the new roof. The work on the roof was completed in 2013. The investor also wants to buy ancillary buildings such as a storage facility and renovate them from 2015. The municipality of Kummerow wants to raise 70,000 euros from the sale. At the same time, a revitalization of the Lenné Park including the restoration of a landing stage on the banks of the Kummerower See based on the historical model is also being planned.
John Berger
A first exhibition for the Open Monument Day on September 20, 2015 attracted 4,000 visitors. With the work of the Dresden painter Eberhard Göschels, the type of renovation was successfully underlined. The choice of artist and the renovation concept went hand in hand here in order to charge the spirit of the traces that have been preserved with the artist's painting style and to interlock his artistic approach with the history of the house. Traces left that tell of life in changing ideologies. So it says in the hall of mirrors, preserved as an old wall painting: “I am the sword! I am the flame! I enlightened you in the dark, and when the battle began, I fought ahead, in the front row. ”Even if the times have emptied the Heine quote from his former socialist propaganda, the house in its collage-like appearance should be closed with feudal set pieces cheer for new life.
Opening of the photographic collection - Kummerow Castle
The photographic collection - Schloss Kummerow opens in 2016 and fits into the renovation concept of the manor house. The general time reference of the medium of photography meets the careful restoration of the historical architectural stock. The collection is not presented in the usual white rooms, but is in dialogue with the intentionally preserved traces of the house's past and its history.
The holdings of the Photographic Collection - Schloss Kummerow include over 2,000 photographs from Torsten Kunert's private collection. The bundle is one of the leading private photographic collections in Germany and will form the basis for permanent and temporary exhibitions at Schloss Kummerow. The focus of the holdings lies in the period from the Second World War to the present day and is constantly being expanded with new positions in photography. Thanks to a constant purchasing policy, originals by internationally known photographers have been part of the collection since the 1990s. It will now be presented to a large audience for the first time at Schloss Kummerow.
The heart of today's holdings are photographs that were taken during the GDR era by now renowned representatives of the GDR's photographic history. They document the past and lasting worlds of people living in the former GDR.
The collection has seen an important addition in recent years through the purchase of extensive collections of anonymous photography on the history of documentary and object photography. Even today, outstanding works and documents, archives and bequests find their way into the collection.
A public attraction is represented by the density of large-format works that have given back to the castle with its more than 3,500 square meters its once praised tapestry decoration. An extension of the exhibition situation with several video rooms will enable the presentation of time-based works such as film and video.
The transfer of the collection's own specialist library and rare photo books are planned for the future. These should be available for scientific research after registration.
Thematic exhibitions of the Photographic Collection - Schloss Kummerow will deal with the cultural history of photography and deal with the social and political effects of the medium in all its areas. Presentations are shown that are compiled from the company's own inventory as well as those that are in dialogue with it. The exhibitions should change regularly and be accompanied by publications. The exchange of content with regional and international institutions and the mutual loaning of individual works should take on a high priority.
Artists: Marina Abramović , Nobuyoshi Araki , Fiona Banner, Peter Beard , Bernd and Hilla Becher , Sibylle Bergemann , Viktoria Binschtok, Thorsten Brinkmann, Daniele Buetti , Martin Damman, Thomas Demand , Arno Fischer , Günther Förg , Maike Freess, Andreas Gursky , Harald Hauswald , Candida Höfer , Sabine Hornig, Clemens Krauss , Ute and Werner Mahler , Bjørn Melhus , Helmut Newton , Tatsumi Orimoto , Helga Paris , Nira Pereg, Bettina Rheims , Thomas Ruff , Sebastião Salgado , Adrian Sauer , Martin Schöller , Sarah Schönfeld, Gundula Schulze Eldowy , Thomas Struth , Hiroshi Sugimoto , Miroslav Tichý , Ulay , Mariana Vassileva , Michael Wesely , Siegfried Wittenburg and many others.
description
The two-storey main building, elongated over eleven axes, with a plastered facade and mansard hipped roof has a three-storey, segment-arched portal gable and is connected to two-storey corner pavilions via single-storey gallery buildings. The castle is surrounded by historic farm buildings and the remains of a landscape park.
Left corner pavilion
Portal with empty coat of arms
Right corner pavilion
Web links
- schloss-kummerow.de
- Photos with interior views of Schloss Kummerow - Süddeutsche Zeitung, ailing mansions - cheap castles under the hammer , March 28, 2011
- Kummerow Castle (Information from the State of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania)
- Material on Schloss Kummerow in the Duncker Collection of the Central and State Library Berlin (PDF; 250 kB)
- State Office for Culture and Monument Preservation MV: New roof on the old castle - Roof renovation at Kummerow Castle - Monument of the month February 2015
Individual evidence
- ↑ Berthold Schmidt: The origin of the von Maltzahn family and their appearance in Pomerania, in: Baltic Studies, NF, Volume VI, p. 130
- ↑ Sale of dilapidated baroque palaces , sueddeutsche.de on March 28, 2011
- ↑ Thoralf Plath : After the castle now the granaries. (No longer available online.) February 26, 2013, formerly in the original ; Retrieved November 8, 2013 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 53 ° 46 ′ 13 ″ N , 12 ° 49 ′ 51 ″ E