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Background article
Agata, Dorota, Iwona, Jolanta
"What luck that we had this kindergarten!" All four say. That was in the early 1970s. Agata and Jolanta now live in Germany, Dorota and Iwona have stayed in Masuria. Lehndorff Castle, the "Pałac", was a place they all felt happy. In those stately rooms they had a feeling of security and comfort, they played among the old oaks, went swimming in the lake. It was a microcosm away from the adult world with its worries and traumas.
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Antje Vollmer
She is known as a Green Party politician and for her longstanding role as Vice President of the German Bundestag. After retiring in 2005, she became a freelance author. Her first book project “Doppelleben” (Double Life) tells the story of Heinrich von Lehndorff, one of the conspirators of the events of 20 July 1944 , and his wife Gottliebe. It is a moving biography of two young aristocrats that tells of their daring and their love.
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Biography
Bettina Bouresh
"I’m a typical post-war child," says Bettina Bouresh. Born in 1950, she grew up burdened with German guilt and the traumas of her mother's family, who had lived in Allenstein until 1945. She herself felt homeless for a long time. Until one day she found her place: in Masuria. Here she found a home – and in Steinort Palace her life’s work. Today she is vice-chairwoman of the Lehndorff Society.
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Bestandstyp
Library holdings | Archive
Collections and holdings of the Institute for German Culture and History in Southeastern Europe (IKGS)
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Danube. River stories
"Look at me, says the Danube. Great am I, beautiful and wise. There is no one in Europe who could hold a candle to me." The Hungarian writer György Konrád put this not exactly modest statement into the mouth of the great river when he opened the first International Danube Festival in Ulm in 1998...
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Digital Library of the Digital Forum Central and Eastern Europe
The Digital Forum Central and Eastern Europe e.V. (DiFMOE) has been operating a digital, freely accessible specialized library with historical documents on Eastern Europe since 2008. In the middle of 2023, its holdings of periodicals included 254 titles, encompassing newspapers, magazines and annual...
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Podcast
Hanna Schygulla
The actor Hanna Schygulla was 30 years old when she first met Gottliebe von Lehndorff in 1973. The scene of the encounter: the artists' colony in the old Peterskirchen vicarage, east of Munich. They lived there for thirteen years, their apartments backing onto each other. Despite their age difference, they had many things in common, not least the experience of losing their homeland. In the podcast, the years they shared at Peterskirchen come back to life.
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Biography
Hannah Wadle
In 2009, Hannah Wadle settled in Sztynort to do research for her doctoral thesis – and stayed for a whole year. Gradually, her cautious explorations turned into familiarity and what began as a purely academic interest became a dedicated personal commitment to the town and its people. She learned to see the Lehndorff manor house from many perspectives. In 2017, she founded a cultural festival, and since then the palace has come to life every August.
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Projekttypen
Infrastructure project | Transfer project | Cultural education and communication project
Kulturelle Vielfalt im Donauraum ("Cultural Diversity in the Danube Region")
Migration, cultural diversity and multiethnic coexistence are topics of ongoing social relevance. For this reason, the project Kulturelle Vielfalt im Donauraum ("Cultural Diversity in the Danube Region") at the Danube Swabian Museum (DZM) aimed to develop new formats to convey Danube Swabian history...
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Biography
Marek Makowski and Piotr Wagner
Two passionate sailors, raised in Giżycko, not far from Sztynort. Marek Makowski (b.1984) and Piotr Wagner (b.1986) left at a young age, took advantage of the opportunities on offer in a united Europe and later returned to the world they grew up in. Marek, an entrepreneur and owner of a sailing school, and Piotr, a self-employed interpreter, tour guide and cultural professional, share a tangible vision for Sztynort.
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Biography
Maria Zarębska
When Maria Zarębska was born, in July 1948, the village of Sztynort was still scarred by war. A few Masurian families had remained living there, but most of the inhabitants – like Maria's parents – were newcomers. Everyone was struggling to survive, to get along with each other, to find their way in socialist Poland. For a child like Maria, all this was "normal." The curious girl later became an avid and perceptive chronicler.
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Biography
Stefan Tymiec Junior
Stefan Tymiec was born in Sztynort in July 1950. “I had a happy childhood”, he says. He hardly felt anything of the tragedies that his parents had lived through. His mother was German and remained in her homeland in 1945. His father was Ukrainian, one of many people who had been forcibly resettled from southeastern Poland. Stefan's childhood happiness lasted eight years, then the family set off for the West.
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Editorial
Steinort – a European place of remembrance
Steinort is a European place of remembrance, because it is a place where the most diverse stories and memories intersect, intertwine, and overlap. The interview project by Ulla Lachauer and Agata Kern explores these subjective strands of memory and reveals a number of different cultures of remembrance.
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Background article
The Lehndorff Hunting Lodge
This charming wooden building was once the hunting lodge of the Lehndorff counts. Here they would gather after the great hunts to feast and celebrate together. Later, the building was leased to an innkeeper. After 1945 it was used as a storehouse, and for a while it served as a village store. It gradually fell into disrepair until one day it caught the eye of the young businessman Alexander Potocki.
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Object story
The Odyssey of a Rococo dresser
For more than 150 years, the Rococo dresser stood on the upper floor of the Steinort castle, in the so-called "Simson room". It bears witness to the lifestyle of an East Prussian noble family. Behind it lies an adventurous journey that began after the failed assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, when Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff, the last lord of the castle, was arrested and executed.
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Object story
The linen dresser
A simple chest of drawers, which came from the Steinort manor house, probably from the servants' quarters. In 1945 it was still quite new, made of pine, unpainted. Ten years ago, an old gentleman donated it to the Museum of Folklore in Węgorzewo, formerly Angerburg, along with other things he had taken from the manor after the end of the war.
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Biography
Verus von Plotho
"There was no culture of remembrance in my family," says Verus von Plotho. He grew up in a cosmopolitan world. He was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1969 and grew up in Munich. His mother is Gabriele Freifrau von Plotho, the third daughter of Heinrich and Gottliebe von Lehndorff. There was hardly any talk at home about his grandfather and his resistance to Hitler, nor about his earlier life at Steinort Castle. Grandson Verus grew up – unencumbered – in the shadow of a dramatic past.
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Podcast
Wenzel
Hans-Eckardt Wenzel, or "Wenzel" as he calls himself, is a poet and singer with Bohemian roots, born in Wittenberg in 1955. In GDR times, he studied farewell letters of young communists who lost their lives in the resistance against Hitler. Through his friendship with Antje Vollmer, he became acquainted with the story of Heinrich and Gottliebe von Lehndorff in 2008 and dedicated a song to the young aristocratic couple entitled: “The Final Letters."
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Biography
Wolfram Jäger
One day, Wolfram Jäger heard on the radio about the catastrophic condition of Lehndorff Palace. The well-known specialist in the restoration of historic buildings had recently completed a major project for UNESCO in Barcelona and immediately made his way to Masuria. In the spring of 2011, he made a momentous decision – a stroke of luck for the castle, a Herculean task for him.