Altdöbern Castle

Altdöbern Castle is a three-winged castle complex in the Brandenburg town of Altdöbern. The castle is a listed building in Altdöbern.

The castle dates back to an early German moated castle. After the Saxon official Hans von Dieskau acquired the estate, it was replaced between 1571 and 1586 by a Renaissance new building – still surrounded by a moat. From 1671, the estate belonged to the von Bomsdorff family. In 1712, Major General Alexander Dietrich von Eickstedt († 1727) acquired the property. As the old Renaissance building seemed too modest to him, he had the previous building demolished and, from 1717, had the current castle built in the Baroque style. It had appropriate dimensions with two wings facing north and a paved courtyard of honor. According to Baroque understanding, the park presented itself as a strict geometric work of art.

Until 1750, the new owner, Carl Heinrich von Heineken, had the complex expanded with extreme splendor, the garden enlarged to almost six times its size, and equipped with canals, water basins, fountains, bridges, pavilions, and valuable sandstone sculptures.

After further changes of ownership, Heinrich Graf von Witzleben-Alt-Doebern acquired the estate in 1880. While his predecessor had made every effort to restore the castle and park to their Baroque state under Heineken, Witzleben spared no effort to achieve the opposite. There were alterations and additions in a peculiar mixture of styles. The two onion domes on the side wings and the sandstone cladding of the facade are attributable to this. The Neo-Romanesque country house, which has been clinging to the Baroque east wing as a strangely alien body since around 1888, also goes back to sketches by Witzleben's wife Marie, née Princess Reuss. Likewise, the Baroque garden was transformed into a 55-hectare landscape park by Eduard Petzold, a student of Pückler. Seven sightlines radiated from the castle. Only the parts located south of the castle – then called the French Garden – and the hedge theater have been preserved from the Baroque state.

In 1917, the cigarette manufacturer Eugen Laib Garbáty acquired the complex and consulted the Berlin garden architect Heinrich Wiepking-Jürgensmann. The numerous rhododendron plantings are attributable to him. Furthermore, urgently needed thinning work was carried out. Due to the National Socialist race laws, Garbáty had to sell Altdöbern in 1938 – the entire family emigrated to the USA in 1939.

After looting in the castle in 1945, the unkempt park became overgrown. Both came under the legal responsibility of the municipality of Altdöbern, which rented the castle to the Caritas association in 1946. This initially used it as an orphanage and then until 1974 as a retirement home. In 1976, the DEFA fairy tale film "Der Meisterdieb" (The Master Thief) was filmed in the castle. With the departure of Caritas, the decay of the complex began. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the castle came into the possession of Brandenburgische Schlösser GmbH. In 1991, the water basin in front of the castle was restored, from 1991–1993 the Neptune Fountain, and in 1992/1993 the Baroque basin in the French Garden. Restoration work on the building is ongoing.