Schwerinsburg Castle

Schloss Schwerinsburg was a grand Baroque manor house in the village of Schwerinsburg, part of Ducherow municipality in Vorpommern-Greifswald. Built in the early 18th century, it stood as the largest Baroque building in Pomerania until its destruction in 1945. Today only a few crumbling walls and a tree-covered rubble mound remain, protected as a historic monument. The house was commissioned by Kurt Christoph von Schwerin after he acquired the estate through inheritance and exchange. Its architect may have been Philipp Gerlach, known for the Potsdam Garrison Church. King Frederick William I renamed the village after visiting, and his son Frederick II later honoured Schwerin as a field marshal and count. A sandstone statue of Schwerin once stood in the courtyard, now held in Berlin’s German Historical Museum. In 1815 the first gymnastics ground in Pomerania was laid out in the park, later redesigned as an English landscape garden. The three-winged building had a central corps de logis with a mansard roof and two square pavilions linked by lower wings. The park side featured a grand staircase and balustrade with a coat of arms. Inside were about a hundred rooms, including a large hall decorated by Italian stucco artists, a theatre, and a two-storey chapel. The house once held a fine collection of paintings by Antoine Pesne, including royal portraits and a self-portrait by the artist. The overgrown ruins and the remains of the landscaped park still hint at the building’s former grandeur.