Johannstorf Castle

Johannstorf Castle (or Johannstorff) was once the manor house of the estate of the same name. It is located in the Nordwestmecklenburg district between Travemünde and the small town of Dassow. The baroque building, in need of renovation, has been vacant for several years and is not publicly accessible.

The estate was originally owned by the Buchwald family, who had resided there since the 16th century. Since the marriage of the heiress Margarete von Buchwald to Claus Schack, the owners bore the name Schack von Buchwald. The Gottorfian privy councillor and Lübeck canon Schack von Buchwald (1705-1770) had the present castle built from 1743 onwards as a successor to a medieval moated castle for himself and his wife Eleonore Elisabeth, née von Plessen. In 1782, the property passed to the Eckermann family, who resided here for several generations until 1945. After the expropriation of the estate owners in the post-war period, and under the GDR government, the castle served as a private residence.

In 1992, the then still independent municipality of Pötenitz sold the property for 331,000 DM to the investor Kurt-Peter Gaedeke, who wanted to develop the complex similarly to his already owned Wotersen estate in Schleswig-Holstein. Due to the ownership structure, he was to acquire the complex in two parts: the castle and part of the park from the municipality of Pötenitz, the courtyard and stables from the federal Bodenverwertungs- und -verwaltungs GmbH (BVVG). However, the expected renovation did not take place, and the building visibly deteriorated in the following years. The buyer justified this with disputes with neighboring property owners. The necessary additional acquisition of required courtyard areas in the immediate vicinity of the castle from the BVVG also did not take place.

In 2008, the castle and the courtyard served as a backdrop for the filming of the movie The White Ribbon – A German Children's Story by director Michael Haneke.

After more than ten years of vacancy, the city of Dassow, as the legal successor to the municipality of Pötenitz, had been examining the possibility of reversing the purchase agreement since 2007, after a new interested party had submitted a concept for the property. However, the owner refused the repurchase in a mediation attempt. In May 2011, the city of Dassow finally filed a lawsuit against the owner at the Schwerin Regional Court, asserting a contract clause that allowed for a retransfer for 30 years if the buyer failed to meet his contractual obligations to invest 1.3 million euros in the first five years. By judgment of December 22, 2011, the court granted the lawsuit and ruled that the owner must return the property to the city of Dassow for 108,000 euros. The defendant appealed the judgment to the Rostock Higher Regional Court.