Burg Vehlefanz

The ruins of Vehlefanz Castle stand beside the village of the same name in Oberkrämer, fifteen kilometres northwest of Berlin. A low man-made mound and the remains of a brick tower mark the site of a 14th-century water castle. The tower once rose from a wide, wet ditch that was filled in during the 19th century. The castle began as a rare mound-and-palisade stronghold built by the Ascanians. Written records mention a knight called Burchard of Vehlefanz in the mid-13th century, but no traces of that early wooden tower survive today. By 1355 the village belonged to the Bredow family, who soon passed it to the Redern family. The Rederns replaced the old high castle with a new water castle, and in 1412 the future Elector Frederick I of Brandenburg camped nearby while campaigning against the Pomeranian dukes. Visitors today see the grassy mound and the stub of the brick tower rising from the centre of the former bailey. A low outer rampart still curves along the north-west edge of the site. The surrounding village preserves the name and layout of the medieval settlement, while the Bosselberg hill to the south holds further silted earthworks that hint at the earliest Slavic fortress.