Kummerow Castle

Kummerow Castle is a Baroque manor house in Kummerow (am See) in the Mecklenburg Lake District in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

History of Ownership

Kummerow was first mentioned in a document in 1222. The place was called Cummerow until the 20th century. Already in 1255, the town received city rights. In 1309, Heinrich von Maltzahn was the castellan of Kummerow and Vogt of the Kalden region. In 1315, Kummerow Castle was besieged but could not be captured. After 1320, the Lords of Maltzahn were deprived of their fief by the Duke of Pomerania, who gifted it to the parish priest of Kummerow in 1368. Around 1420, the place returned to the von Maltzahn family. In 1450, the castle and vogtei were besieged and conquered in a Mecklenburg-Pomeranian feud. After the peace treaty on August 29, 1450, Kummerow Castle, town, and vogtei came under Mecklenburg.

After another war, Kummerow fell back to Pomerania in 1481 and again became a fief of the Maltzahns. From 1573 to 1671, there were lengthy feuds and negotiations between the Maltzahns, the town, and Dargun Monastery. The Thirty Years' War led to great devastation in Kummerow, with only 16 inhabitants surviving the war. Afterwards, Kummerow became Swedish property of General Baron Bleichert. In 1671, Kummerow lost its city rights, and the von Maltzahn family again became owners of the place, which was confirmed to them in 1741 by the new sovereign, King Frederick II of Prussia.

Construction History

Kummerow Castle, directly on the shore of Lake Kummerow, was built in the Baroque style for District Administrator Albrecht Freiherr von Maltzahn by 1733, replacing an older manor house that burned down in 1725. A landscape park was created around the castle according to plans by Peter Joseph Lenné.

After the Maltzahn family was dispossessed in 1945, the main building of the castle served as a school and community office. A sports field was built in the landscape park. In 1964, the main building was renovated. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, conversion work began on the manor house for a planned commercial use of the privately owned complex, but these were subsequently halted. Since then, the architecturally valuable Baroque castle has been visibly decaying. The fragmentation of the park and surrounding properties by the municipality complicates new use.

In March 2011, the castle complex was offered for auction at the spring auction of Deutsche Grundstücksauktionen AG with a minimum bid of 95,000 Euros and was finally acquired by a Berlin company for 130,000 Euros.