Liebenberg Castle

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View from the park to the manor house (2008)
View of the manor from the manor house (2012)

Liebenberg Castle is a former manor with a manor house in the north of Brandenburg . The facility is located in the Liebenberg district of the Löwenberger Land community .

history

Until the end of the Second World War

The noble family von Bredow developed Liebenberg into a manor in the 16th century . Since 1652 the Kleve noble family from and to Hertefeld led the estate to prosperity. A Hertefeld had acquired the Liebenberg property through good relations with the Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm and then made it his family's main residence. His son Jobst Gerhard von Hertefeld zum Kolk also inherited the properties of Uedem and Weeze, Boetzelaer, Hoennepel, Kervenheim and Zelhem (today in Bronckhorst) in addition to the headquarters in Hertefeld . A nephew, Samuel von und zu Hertefeld , was raised to the baron status by Friedrich I. With Freiherr Karl von und zu Hertefeld, the male line died out in 1867, so that the property fell to his great-niece Alexandrine Freiin von Rothkirch- Panthen, who married Count Philipp Conrad zu Eulenburg (1820-1889) from East Prussia, a brother of the State Minister Friedrich zu Eulenburg . In 1867 Alexandrine became the sole heiress of her great-uncle Karl Freiherr von und zu Hertefeld, as a result of which the properties in Liebenberg and on the Lower Rhine (House Hertefeld and House Kolk ) fell to the Counts and later princes of Eulenburg .

The castle was built from a mansion built no later than 1743, which was expanded between 1875 and 1906 in a historicizing style. The former baroque garden was transformed into a landscape park in the 19th century based on designs by Peter Joseph Lenné . In 1908 the lake house was added on the east bank of the Großer Lankesees . The basis for the agricultural use of the area has been thanks to Kleve's chief hunting master Jobst Gerhard von und zu Hertefeld, whom Theodor Fontane described in the volume Five Castles of Walks through the Mark Brandenburg as "epoch-making for the cultural history of the Mark".

The most famous Liebenberger castle owner, Philip, Prince of Eulenburg and Hertefeld was a diplomat and close associate of Kaiser Wilhelm II. In the known for its abundance of game Liebenberger woods they went together to hunt ( Liebenberger circle ) until Eulenburg victim of a campaign of the monarchy hostile journalist Maximilian Harden was who accused him of homosexuality ( Harden-Eulenburg affair ).

During the Nazi era , Hermann Göring came to hunt as a guest. Libertas Schulze-Boysen , granddaughter of Philip zu Eulenburg, married Harro Schulze-Boysen on July 16, 1936 in the castle church . The couple belonged to the Rote Kapelle resistance group .

From autumn 1943 to spring 1945 the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Cell Physiology under the direction of Otto Warburg was relocated to the Seehaus Liebenberg due to the war.

Post-war and GDR times

After the end of the Second World War , Liebenberg belonged to the Soviet zone of occupation . Schloss Liebenberg and the entire estate were without compensation expropriated and the Soviet Military Administration in Germany the Socialist Unity Party (SED) overwritten. Apartments, apprentice accommodation, offices, warehouses, a hairdressing salon, a doctor's office and a kindergarten were built in the castle. The castle chapel was used by the management for celebrations. As an SED party company, the estate had to supply the relevant organizations in East Berlin .

The attractive lake house had been a restricted area since the late 1940s and was guarded. The property received its own electricity and water supply and a direct telephone line to East Berlin. It was the vacation spot of the Central Committee of the SED and accommodated Wilhelm Pieck , Otto Grotewohl , Walter Ulbricht , a Soviet ambassador and state guests , among others . The Liebenberger Forst was declared a state hunting area in 1964 . In Erich Honecker's era since 1971, only subordinate or former members of the Central Committee came to vacation in the Seehaus, which was guarded by a special unit of the German People's Police .

Memorial plaque in the castle park

In the course of the turning point and the peaceful revolution in the GDR , demonstrators moved in front of the Seehaus in December 1989 and demanded entry (“We want in”, “We are the people”), which was granted to a delegation.

Since the German reunification

In 1991 the Treuhandanstalt took over the property and put it up for sale in 1996. The residents of Liebenberg were allowed to purchase the houses they lived in. At the turn of the millennium, the Deutsche Kreditbank (DKB) took over the remaining estate. The castle became a hotel and the Seehaus a conference center; A gallery, museum and farm shop were built on the estate. The fields are leased. In 2005 the DKB Foundation for Social Commitment took over the estate. It maintains it according to the principles of monument protection and "promotes art, music, historical documentation, science and education".

Monument protection

The list of monuments of the State of Brandenburg lists [the] Gutsanlage Liebenberg, consisting of a manor house ("Schloss Liebenberg") with a mural "Alexanderschlacht", hunting and weapons hall building, hunters' houses, avenue, coach house, inspector house (storage building), two residential houses ("Kastanien- and Gärtnerhaus ”), inn“ Zum Roten Hirsch ”, two ice cellars, fencing as well as an estate with forge, five stables and two barns . There is also the manor park with the Lintenhaus and tea house , a half-timbered storage facility on the manor , and finally “Seehaus Castle” with farm buildings , gate and parts of the enclosure .

literature

Web links

Commons : Schloss Liebenberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Theodor Fontane: Walks through the Mark Brandenburg. Part 5. Five locks . (1st edition 1889.) Quotation from the edition Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, Munich 1971, p. 231 ISBN 3-485-00293-3 .
  2. Cancer research under the roof of the Seehaus. In: Märkische Allgemeine . May 11, 2014, accessed December 7, 2015 .
  3. List of monuments of the state of Brandenburg - Oberhavel district. (PDF; 232 kB) Retrieved May 13, 2019 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 53 ′ 39.7 "  N , 13 ° 15 ′ 31"  E