Schloss Oderwitz

Schloss Oderwitz stands in the village of Oderwitz in Saxony, a 1910–1911 brick manor house under conservation. It replaced an earlier 17th-century estate that had belonged to the von Nostitz family for generations. The last private owner, Maximilian Freiherr von Beschwitz, built the present house and moved in with his wife and five children in 1911. After the Second World War the family was expropriated and the estate divided up. The manor then became a youth hostel run by the community for more than sixty years. The building’s history includes the storage of Prussian State Library books in the final weeks of the war. After 1945 the estate was split into smallholdings, yet the manor remained intact and served as a hostel from 1949 under the name ‘Thomas Mann’. In the 1990s extra bungalows were added to house seasonal guests. The hostel closed in 2006 and the community sold the property in 2012 to a private buyer. Visitors today find a two-storey manor with simple classical lines set in a quiet village. The surrounding park still contains the family burial plot preserved for the von Beschwitz heirs. Inside, wide corridors lead to dormitory rooms once used by travellers. Outside, the Oderwitz countryside offers gentle hills and open fields, a peaceful setting for walks.