Isenschnibbe Castle

Gardelegen Castle was founded in the 10th century as a regional castle. Under its protection, the city of Gardelegen developed from 1100 onwards, achieving economic importance, possessing a cultivated patriciate, and joining the Hanseatic League. In 250 breweries, the "Garlei," North Germany's oldest export beer, was brewed here. During the Ascania period, Isenschnibbe served the Margraves of Brandenburg as one of their residences. A grandson of Albert the Bear, Count Heinrich († 1192), founder of important churches, was named after Gardelegen Castle. He first appears in documents in 1186 as "Count of Gardelegen." This is also the oldest mention of Gardelegen (over 825 years ago: 2011). The Ascanians were followed by the Welfs, Wittelsbachs, and Luxembourgers.

For a long time, the lordship remained ungranted, until the always cash-strapped later Emperor Sigismund pledged the castle and office to the White Alvensleben of Klötze in 1378. Gebhard XIV von Alvensleben (mentioned 1393–1425) belonged to the noble opposition around the Quitzow brothers, who resisted the Hohenzollerns, who were installed as Margraves of Brandenburg in 1411. In 1414, Margrave Friedrich I conquered the castle, thereby solidifying Hohenzollern rule in the western Altmark. In 1448, Elector Friedrich II Eisenzahn granted the castle, which had previously only been a pledge, to Werner II von Alvensleben as an hereditary fief.

With customs duties and half of the urban jurisdiction, the castle maintained a semi-sovereign relationship with the city until the 16th century. Within Gardelegen, the lords of the castle owned significant house property. Furthermore, they owned large forests and some of the 31 surrounding villages entirely, others in part, including Kunrau with vast moorlands of the Drömling. In addition, before and after the Reformation, they held the protective vogtei over the Cistercian nunnery of Neuendorf with rights in the numerous localities of the abbey district. Almost all places in the Gardelegen district were connected to the lordships of Gardelegen and Calbe (Milde). In procession, the lords of Isenschnibbe and their retinue used to appear for services at Gardelegen's Nikolaikirche, where their lord's gallery, dating from the Romanesque period, was still located. The inheritance of half of the rich Erxleben court in 1554, which increased their prosperity, found a visible sign in the elaborate Gardelegen epitaph for Valentin von Alvensleben (1529–1596), created in 1597 by Jürgen and Hans Röttger, a masterpiece of Braunschweig Renaissance sculpture. It was located in the Nikolaikirche until 1945 and was re-erected in the Marienkirche after its destruction.

The Thirty Years' War, in which the castle and city saw garrisons of changing powers and their commanders, including Pappenheim, within their walls, hit Gardelegen hard. Misfortune, which continued to plague the city, formed the backdrop for the fates of the castle lords. With a beautiful housewife, daughter of the Venetian Stechinelli, Welfish Droste and Imperial Baron of Wickenburg, the Catholic confession temporarily returned to Isenschnibbe around 1700.

In 1783, the castle was demolished. The keep had already been removed some years earlier. In place of the castle, a two-story half-timbered building in a simple country house style with little splendor was erected. This was long considered not to be a sufficient replacement at all. The splendor first came to the house with the von Kröcher family and later through the complete renovation by the Bloch von Blottnitz family. (See Isenschnibbe Castle)

Weteritz Castle

In 1831, the lords of the castle moved their residence from Isenschnibbe to Weteritz near Gardelegen, where Peter Joseph Lenné surrounded the newly built manor house with a landscape park. Financial decline led to the sale of the Weteritz estate in 1857 to the ducal-Anhaltian Amtsrat Carl Heinrich Theodor Roth, whose family managed the property until its expropriation in 1945. Adolph Menzel portrayed the last lady of the castle as royal chief lady-in-waiting for the Königsberg coronation painting of 1863. Weteritz Castle with its Lenné Park is visibly decaying. The park receives hardly any visible care. The castle, which has already been renovated once, is in the same state. Furniture that was in the castle until 1945 was discovered in the Gardelegen town hall in 2009 by the heirs of the Roth family. A dispute over the furniture broke out. No purchases are said to have taken place, and the city is asking for a loan. The clarification of the problem is pending. The Roth family has left their traces visible in the park to this day. The tree population, which was collected from all over the world, is still visible.

Isenschnibbe Castle

Isenschnibbe Castle was owned by the Bloch von Blottnitz family from about 1905. They donated a town hall door in Gardelegen, which can still be seen today. The castle was also owned by the von Kröcher family, famous people here were Bertha von Kröcher and Jordan von Kröcher, both born at Isenschnibbe. The Blottnitzens sold the castle in 1939 to the Prince of Lippe, who had never seen it himself. The last residents were the Bloch von Blottnitzens, who fled with the Americans to Lüchow-Dannenberg in 1945. Inventory and other valuable items are said to have been saved. On the eve of the land reform of 1945, Isenschnibbe was owned by the Prince of Lippe. Then the Russian commandant's office moved in. The first duty roster was found by the current owners behind a wall paneling. After the Russian commandant's office, the SED party school moved into the castle. They knocked out the coat of arms on the sandstone fireplace in the foyer. However, they forgot the depiction in the dining room and on the sandstone facade outside. After the party school, the VEB Saatgutbetrieb (state-owned seed company) moved into the castle with its offices and an apartment. Good for the house, it was largely maintained, heated, and there was life in the castle. After the restitution to the Prince of Lippe failed in the early 1990s (he would have had to buy it), the Treuhand (privatization agency) auctioned it off. It came into the possession of a gardener and a nurse, who apparently bought the castle as an investment property. It visibly decayed. Then in 2007, discovered by a newspaper article hundreds of kilometers from the castle, the Rothermel family came to the castle. They bought it after a viewing. Since 2007, they have been trying with great effort, money, and love to restore the house to its preservation and life. It is the family's third listed building that they are renovating. The roof renovation is expected to be completed in autumn 2013. This will be followed by the renovation of the grand staircase and the roof terrace, which had caused great damage in the risalit of the house due to years of water ingress. The same happened at the back of the house, here due to an initial hole in the gutter. The dry rot must be removed and the wall removed up to the upper floor. A heating system was installed in the late 1980s. This has caused damage that is difficult to correct. The castle is slowly regaining its old splendor. To this day, it has not lost its centuries-old charm and is over 90% preserved. It is to remain accessible to the public. The ACZ area, which is being transformed into a park by the city, contributes significantly to the integration of the castle into the city.

The reconstruction image, developed from an engraving by Matthäus Merian, shows the city surrounded by its fortifications with Nikolaikirche, Marienkirche, and the town hall tower. The converging streets lead into the still existing Salzwedel Gate. Above the mighty moated castle, Neuendorf Monastery, founded in 1230, is visible. The Alvenslebens had themselves buried there as patrons until the Reformation, later in the Ascanian crypt of Gardelegen's Nikolaikirche. On the right edge of the picture, one can see the Boitzendorf Pond, a 3 km long reservoir created by the castle lords before 1447, on whose banks the Baroque gardens of Polvitz were created from 1692; in the background, forests of the Brandenburg court hunting ground Letzlingen, which – once called "Gardelegen Heath" – belonged to the castle. A double ditch system protected Isenschnibbe. In the inner courtyard stood the bulky round tower as the oldest landmark, next to it the well adorned with a columned pavilion. The spacious manor house was three stories high and housed the still preserved castle chapel in the basement. All buildings leaned against the polygonal castle wall, which was enclosed by the round inner moat, and consisted of half-timbering on the upper floors of the courtyard side. With their water-surrounded curtain walls, to which the buildings were circularly attached, and round keeps in the inner courtyard, Isenschnibbe, Calvörde, and the original Calbe represented the older castle type. Nothing certain is known about their preliminary forms. The rectangular complexes shaped the landscape but seemed to be of a later date. Since the utility rooms were included, there was no actual outer bailey. Access from the south was via four drawbridges. In front of the gatehouse flanked by round bastions on the rampart, there was a ravelin-like zwinger. The castle mill was rebuilt in 1684. Pleasure and utility gardens are attested, but not their location. Like the city's fortress ditches, those of the castle were fed by the Milde and the Lusbach, which flows into it here. Out of an overly progressive mindset, the keep was demolished in 1756 and the entire castle in 1784. A late Baroque manor house, which – rebuilt – still exists, offered only an inadequate replacement for the historic buildings.