Historic Brandenburg castle in Garzau-Garzin, now vacant and rarely viewable.
Schloss Garzau is a castle in Garzau-Garzin, Brandenburg, Germany, and an architectural heritage monument. After a fire destroyed it on 10 June 1910, it was rebuilt by the von Rohrscheidt family. Used from 1979 as a Berlin magistrate training and holiday home, it now stands empty with an overgrown park.
Schloss Garzau is a castle in Garzau-Garzin, Brandenburg, Germany, and is listed as an architectural heritage monument in Brandenburg. It was destroyed by fire on 10 June 1910 and was later rebuilt by the von Rohrscheidt family. In 1779, the Garzau estate was bought by Friedrich Wilhelm Karl von Schmettau, who had a landscape park laid out there. Since 1979, the castle was used as a training and holiday home of the Magistrate of Berlin and brought many prominent guests to Garzau. Today the building stands empty and may be visited only by prospective buyers. Under the German Unification Treaty, it belongs to the state of Berlin, and an attempt by the municipality to regain it failed. The park has since become overgrown. Some interior decoration in the castle hall has survived, including ceiling ornaments depicting the four elements—fire, water, air, and earth—which the philosopher Empedocles regarded in the fifth century BC as the basic elements of earthly life. The available information also places Schloss Garzau within the historic Rittergut Garzau, a landed estate whose recorded ownership changed over time and which had substantial woodland in the nineteenth century.
