SÅ‚obity

Słobity ( German Schlobitten ) is a village in Poland. It belongs to the municipality Wilczęta in powiat Braniewski, Warmian -Masurian in the former East Prussia.

History

The name of the place as Slobita, Slobithe, Slobuthe and Schlobitten were Prussian origin. 1525 came the possession of Peter Dohna ( 1483-1553 ) and remained from 1589 to 1945 continuously in the family of Dohna. Here was the headquarters of the noble family Dohna- Schlobitten. Schlobitten just northeast of town Prussian Holland in the homonymous district of the province of East Prussia. The place is Old Prussian origin, was in the 15th century belonged to the family of Marwitz and then until the early 16th century in the possession of the family of land- Greff. 1525 Peter Burggraf Dohna ( 1482-1553 ), on Carwinden, invested with farm and village Schlobitten, " which were posthumous estates of Hans von Cannon ".

Castle

Peter Dohnas son, Achatius I. (1533-1601), was the existing medieval manor house manufacture and expand about 1589 and took up his residence there. In this house, lodged in 1611 and Elector Johann Sigismund of Brandenburg during his visit to Kaliningrad. The trained in engineering and fortress building son of Count Achatius, Abraham II Burggraf and Graf Dohna (1579-1631) finally settled, 1621-1624 - probably next to the old manor house - a completely new castle on an H-shaped floor plan in the late Renaissance style built from which an old view is handed on a Dohna'schen pedigree and for which he had made himself very accurate design drawings ( floor plans and section). After the devastation and plunder of the castle during the Swedish-Polish War, 1629 Abraham could be prepared again. It was a two-story stucco building with massive basement and typical of the Renaissance Zwerchhäusern with three-zone gables, which had two floors. 1627 took place in the northern escape the castle, in the east and only slightly separated from the main building, the erection of a gallery-like single-storey library building (33 m long and 6 m deep). The long gallery was spanned by cross vaults. The new building of the palace in the Baroque style was commissioned by Alexander Dohna ( 1661-1728 ). The construction lasted from 1696 to 1736. The architects were Jean Baptiste Broebes (1660-1720) and Johann Caspar Hindersin ( 1667-1738 ).

The finished castle was an East Prussian royal palace, on his travels to serve the task of the Prussian king as accommodation.

In 1945 the castle was destroyed by arson after entry of the Red Army. Today only stand the perimeter of the building.

Personalities

Sons and daughters of the town

• Karl Friedrich Emil Dohna - Schlobitten (1784-1859), Prussian field marshal
• Alfred Oehlke (1862-1932), German journalist and newspaper editor