Wotersen Castle

The noble estate of Wotersen, also known as Wotersen Castle, was owned for almost three centuries by the Bernstorff family, who significantly shaped Hanoverian and Danish politics in the 18th century. The estate is located in the municipality of Roseburg in the district of Herzogtum Lauenburg in southeastern Schleswig-Holstein.

A village named Wotersen was first mentioned in 1230 in the Ratzeburg tithe register. The estate, endowed with its own jurisdiction, was demonstrably owned by the von Dalldorf family (also: Daldorff) since 1408, who originated from Dalldorf and took over the complex from the von Schack family. In 1672, it was mortgaged to the von Falkenberg family, but shortly thereafter redeemed by General Valentin Johann von Dalldorf.

In 1717, the estate, along with the surrounding farms, was acquired by Andreas Gottlieb Freiherr von Bernstorff (1649–1726), who came from the Mecklenburg knighthood. He was one of the most influential politicians at the Celle and Hanoverian courts and was also politically active in England under King George I. In addition to Wotersen, he acquired the Stintenburg estate in Lauenburg and the Gartow estate in Hanover, with the land primarily serving as an investment; the latter two are still owned by the Bernstorff family today. From 1720, Andreas Gottlieb von Bernstorff had new buildings erected by Johann Caspar Borchmann in place of the castle destroyed in the Thirty Years' War. In the same year, Gut Wotersen was converted into a family fideicommissum, a foundation in which the family inherits the estate undivided.

The diplomat and Danish minister Johann Hartwig Ernst Graf von Bernstorff (1712–1772), who inherited the estate in 1737, had plans for its reconstruction drawn up by Johann Paul Heumann just two years later, which was completed in 1765. In 1770, von Bernstorff retired to the estate after being overthrown by Johann Friedrich Struensee. In 1772, von Bernstorff died on the estate at the age of 59. The garden planned under him was never realized, and the interior work was only completed in the mid-19th century, when the estate was permanently inhabited by a great-grandnephew of Bernstorff. He also had the Baroque garden transformed into a landscape park and modernized the estate's farm buildings.

The estate remained in family ownership until 1996. Today it is owned by Kurt-Peter Gaedeke.