Rheinsberg Castle

In the Middle Ages, a moated castle stood on the site of the present palace. After 1464, when the von Bredow family acquired the Rheinsberg lordship through marriage, a Renaissance-style moated castle was built after 1566. This was severely damaged during the Thirty Years' War. After several changes of ownership, King Frederick William I of Prussia acquired the estate in 1734 and gifted it to his son, Crown Prince Frederick, later Frederick II. In 1736, he moved into the south wing with his wife and had the palace extended and redesigned by Johann Gottfried Kemmeter and Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff until 1740. After his accession to the throne in 1740, he gifted the palace to his younger brother Henry, who lived there with his wife from 1752 and continued to expand and beautify it until his death in 1802.