Plessow Castle

In the 18th century, Friedrich Ludwig V. von Rochow erected the castle in Plessow. Parts of the existing predecessor buildings were to be incorporated into the extension. Predecessor buildings are reported from 1624 onwards. Hans XIV. von Rochow left the following:

In 1624, 1625, 1626 I built the gatehouse.

The current side wing probably corresponds to the mentioned gatehouse. During restoration work, after removing old superimposed plaster layers, a former gate passage, bricked up at an earlier time, became visible on both sides in the middle of the building. The following cited references confirm the assumption of an earlier residential house.

After my house collapsed in 1628, I began building the new house in 1629 and built on it in 1630, 1631 and 1632. ... In 1633 I had four large rooms floored (insert wooden floors) and in 1634, because of my little son Hans Ernst, I had the doors made to the other floor and brought in tables, ledges, stools, benches and beds, and also had the small room floored.

This residential house had a floor area of approximately 283 m² and thus reached two-thirds the size of the current manor house. It was probably built on the foundation remains of the collapsed predecessor building. The foundations, as was customary at the time, were built from fieldstones and have a thickness of over one meter. They date from the mid-16th century and are thus among the oldest preserved parts of the building. In 1648, Hans XIV. von Rochow acquired the Stülpe estate in exchange for the Neuendorf estate. Hans Ernst I., his son, took over Plessow in 1660, the other son the property in Stülpe. In 1787, Friedrich Ludwig V. von Rochow (1745-1808) from the Stülpe side line inherited Plessow, as Hans Ernst I.'s grandson remained without heirs. Plessow awaited him as a ruin. He had an almost dilapidated half-timbered house demolished. Friedrich Ludwig V. von Rochow began building the castle-like manor house, which was to be more than 100 m² larger than the predecessor building. Two large rooms were added on the ground floor, and a large hall above them. The old gatehouse became a residential house. Between 1850 and 1870, extensive renovations were carried out. The roof was redesigned, dormer windows were installed, and the hall was vaulted. Fireplaces were installed in almost all rooms, and parquet replaced the plank flooring. Various stucco cornices were created as room decorations. A representative vestibule with cast-iron columns was created. The ceiling of the ballroom received neo-baroque decorative details. With the death of Friedrich Ludwig VII. von Rochow in 1914, the entire Plessow property, according to Fideikommiss foundation documents still available in the Teltow-Fläming district archive (Luckenwalde), passed to his nephew Hans Wichard von Rochow, who in turn was already the owner of the estates in and around Stülpe. In the 1920s, the upper floor of the side wing was extended. In 1945, the owners were forcibly expropriated and expelled by the communists.

After 1945, minor renovations took place. The manor house was briefly inhabited by war refugees. From 1948 to 1951, a commercial school of the then state of Brandenburg was housed in the manor house. Until the end of 1963, the property was then used as a training center for the Ministry of Foreign Trade of the GDR. From 1964 until the fall of the Berlin Wall, the former manor house of the noble family housed the technical college of the GDR customs administration; today, it is a service location for the Education and Science Center of the Federal Financial Administration.