Qualla: Schloss Meseberg

Schloss Meseberg: Introduction

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bernhard Rode, Public domain. In 1774 Prince Henry of Prussia had a problem at Rheinsberg Palace, where he kept court some twenty kilometres to the northwest. His brother, King Frederick II, had ordered him to remove a certain Christian Ludwig von Kaphengst from that court — and Heinrich, rather than send his lover away empty-handed, bought him a Baroque palace on a lake. Kaphengst moved into Meseberg in 1775 and set about furnishing it far beyond his means, commissioning ceiling frescoes from the painter Bernhard Rode. One of them shows Prince Henry ascending into heaven. Two and a half centuries later, the same rooms are where German chancellors take heads of state to dinner.

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Image: Bernhard Rode | Public domain

Schloss Meseberg: Built Twice, Given Away Once

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carl August 19:32, 25. Sep. 2008 (CEST), CC BY-SA 3.0 de. The Wartensleben family put up the present palace in 1739, replacing an earlier building on the site that had burned down. It is a stucco block with Ionic half-columns and a high mansard roof — modest by the standards of Prussian royal architecture, generous by the standards of a...

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Image: Carl August 19:32, 25. Sep. 2008 (CEST) | CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Schloss Meseberg: Newspaper, Reichsmarschall, Grocery Store

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Doris Antony, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0. The estate was later bought by the Lessing family, proprietors of the Vossische Zeitung, one of Berlin's great liberal newspapers. Under the Nazis it was taken from them by force and became Hermann Göring's. In 1945 the Soviet occupation took it in turn. What happened next is th...

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Image: Doris Antony, Berlin | CC BY-SA 3.0

Schloss Meseberg: Thirty Million Dollars, One Euro a Year

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Botaurus stellaris, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1995 the Messerschmitt Foundation, which exists to rescue historic buildings, bought the estate. Restoration took eleven years and more than thirty million dollars — stucco, columns, mansard roof, frescoes, gardens, the lot. The foundation then leased the finished palace to t...

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Image: Botaurus stellaris | CC BY-SA 3.0

Schloss Meseberg: Eight Days a Year

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brunhilde Schaefer, CC BY-SA 3.0. For a building with that pedigree, Meseberg is used surprisingly little. Between 2015 and 2018 it averaged eight days of use a year, two of which were public: an open house and a Christmas tree lighting. The guest list on the other days is another matter. Dmitry Medvedev came in...

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Image: Brunhilde Schaefer | CC BY-SA 3.0