Alt Ranft Castle

The first manor house was built around 1600. In 1652, Jacob von Pfuhl sold the estate to Wolf Friedrich von Bomsdorf. Under his rule, initial land improvement works took place, and in 1678, the manor house was converted into a baroque castle.

In 1739, ownership of the estate was transferred to Privy Councillor of Finance Samuel von Marschall. He advocated to Frederick II for the drainage of the Oderbruch, which then took place from 1747 to 1762 under Marschall's leadership. With the drainage, fishing as a livelihood for the inhabitants of Altranft disappeared. It was replaced by now profitable agriculture.

In 1820, Heinrich August von Marschall sold the estate to Count Wilhelm Werner Georg von Hacke. The estate then remained in the possession of the Counts von Hacke until 1916. With the acquisition of the estate, Count Hacke began to design the 3.5-hectare castle park under the influence of Peter Joseph Lenné. In 1878, under Edwin Graf von Hacke, the single-story annex of the castle, built in 1724, was demolished and replaced by a new building with two side wings. This gave the castle its present appearance.

In 1916, the estate was bought by Heinrich Wertheimer, who, however, sold it in the same year to Carl Eschenbach. The Eschenbach family, consisting of the merchant Carl Eschenbach (* March 3, 1879 Elberfeld; † February 1945), his wife Else (* April 2, 1900 Berlin; † February 1945) and children Carla (* March 1, 1928; † January 21, 1943) and Carl-Adolf (* 1929) led the estate and the village to new prosperity. Through the re-cultivation of the estate and its associated lands, over 100 employees were at times in the service of the Eschenbach family. After the suicide of the Eschenbach couple in February 1945, the estate was confiscated by the Russian army during their crossing of the Oder and became public property after the founding of the GDR.

After 1945, Altranft was located in the Soviet occupation zone. Initially, resettlers moved into the castle. The agricultural areas of the estate were distributed as part of the land reform to 18 farm laborers, 73 smallholders, 50 resettlers, and one farming family. In 1949, the castle became the property of the state of Brandenburg. After the resettlers moved out, it then housed, partly simultaneously, partly successively, a school, a school after-school care center, a day nursery, a restaurant, a library, or was used as a cultural center.