Broock Castle, once the social center of the region and the largest private stud farm in Vorpommern, will be developed into a supra-regional conference and cultural center in the coming years.
Broock Castle was built for Major General Christan Bogislaw von Linden as a grandly dimensioned, late Baroque manor house in 1770-77. The heir, Carl von Gentzkow, established horse breeding at the beginning of the 19th century, which developed into the largest private stud farm in Vorpommern under his successors, the Barons von Seckendorff, and existed until 1945.
In 1841-43 Friedrich August Stüler, the "master builder of the King of Prussia", was commissioned to rebuild the castle in the so-called "castle-gothic" style. At the same time, the celebrated garden artist Peter Joseph Lenné provided the plans for the transformation of the park into an English landscape garden. Broock was the social center and meeting place for the nobility of the entire region in the 19th century. Balls and distinguished hunting parties alternated.
In 1945 the estate was expropriated, refugee families were quartered in the castle, and a consumer shop, a kindergarten, a school and the municipal office were established. In 1974, the community sold the castle to VEB Kranbau Eberswalde. Plans to set up a vacation home for employees never came to fruition.
In 2017, after 43 years of looting and decay, Schloss Broock GmbH & Co. KG became the owner of the site and revived the idyllic place in the beautiful Tollensetal. With the support of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Federal Republic of Germany - which classifies Broock as a monument of special national importance - and the Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz (German Foundation for the Protection of Monuments), emergency restoration of the castle ruins began in 2018. In the coming years, a supraregional cultural and conference center will be built in Broock.
