Wotersen Castle

The first mention of a village named Wotersen appears in the Ratzeburg tithe register from 1230. From 1408, the estate was owned by the von Dalldorf family, who acquired it from the von Schack family. After a brief mortgage to the von Falkenberg family in 1672, it was redeemed by General Valentin Johann von Dalldorf. In 1717, Andreas Gottlieb Freiherr von Bernstorff acquired the estate. From 1720, he had new buildings erected by Johann Caspar Borchmann, after the original castle had been destroyed during the Thirty Years' War. The estate was converted into a family fideicommiss in the same year. Johann Hartwig Ernst Graf von Bernstorff, who inherited the estate in 1737, commissioned Johann Paul Heumann in 1739 to draw up plans for its reconstruction, which was completed in 1765.