The history of Schmuggerow Castle
Schmuggerow Castle lies in Anklamer Grafen Winkel. The most famous family in this area are the counts of Schwerin. The first was a Bernard who came to the region in the 12th century with Henry the Lion and became the bailiff of a fortress in Schwerin. Ulrich von Schwerin was the Grand Master of the Pomeranian Duke Philip I. He built the fortresses Spantekow and Putzar, as well as Landskron. The similarity of the names indicates clear connections to the Swedish fortified town of Landskrona.
The time of the Prussian reforms in 1814 and the later “Gründerzeit” were the actual “birth times” of castle Schmuggerow.
When Maximilian Count von Schwerin’s daughter married Count von Kanitz, he transferred the Schmuggerow estate, including the manor house, to the young couple as a dowry. In 1871 the Kanitz built the castle Schmuggerow. Even today, the well-kept grave of the von Kanitz family can be found in the Schmuggerow cemetery.
Paul Otto Brückwald, the famous architect, was commissioned in 1870 to build the Schmuggerow Castle on the estate. Until 1873 Brückwald was in charge of the work for Schmuggerow Castle and realised a 2-storey neo-Baroque plaster building over a field stone base.
During the work in Schmuggerow he was called to Bayreuth to build the famous Wagner Theatre in Bayreuth. Wagner asked Brückwald personally and asked him to build the Bayreuth Festival Theatre. Brückwald received the “Bavarian Order of Merit of Saint Michael” and the “Knight’s Cross 1st Class”. 1881/82 he added the Königsbau. “He had succeeded in something completely new and revolutionary in the spirit of Wagner and Emperor.
