Heiligengrabe Abbey

The monastery was founded around 1287 by Margrave Otto IV. Two years later, twelve nuns from the Cistercian monastery Neuendorf (Altmark) moved into the complex. By 1317, the existence of a Holy Sepulchre, which gave the monastery its name, was already documented. Few reliable documents from the 14th and 15th centuries have survived. However, a rent book from 1513 confirms that at the beginning of the 16th century, about 180 people belonged to the monastery, including around 70 Cistercian nuns led by an abbess. Typical of Cistercian settlements, the religious community pioneered the cultivation of the marshy terrain.