Schloss Liebenberg, Castle in Löwenberger Land, Germany

Schloss Liebenberg is a multi-story manor house with pale yellow walls and white trim, standing behind a line of trees. Its grey roof carries three dark, steeply pitched towers: the tallest on the right, topped with a slender spire and weathervane, a shorter one left of centre and a small one between them. Rows of rectangular windows, gabled dormers and curved gables at both ends complete the facade.

Liebenberg was a knightly estate of the von Bredow family in the 16th century and passed to the von und zu Hertefeld family in 1652. The manor house was built by 1743 and enlarged in historicist style between 1875 and 1906. In 1867 the line died out with Baron Karl von und zu Hertefeld, and the estate went to Alexandrine von Rothkirch-Panthen, who married Count Philipp Conrad zu Eulenburg.

The Liebenberg circle around Philipp zu Eulenburg met here, and the writer Theodor Fontane described the estate in his "Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg". Libertas Schulze-Boysen, granddaughter of Philipp, spent her childhood here and married Harro Schulze-Boysen in the castle church on 16 July 1936; both belonged to the Rote Kapelle resistance group.

Schloss Liebenberg lies in the Liebenberg district of Löwenberger Land, north of Berlin. The palace now operates as a hotel, while the Seehaus on the east shore of the Große Lankesee serves as a conference centre; the estate also has a museum and farm shop. The grounds are maintained by the DKB STIFTUNG in line with heritage-protection principles, and the fields are leased to an organic farm.

The Seehaus on the east shore of the Große Lankesee, built in 1908, was a guarded SED Central Committee holiday home after 1945, wired with its own telephone line to East Berlin. In December 1989 demonstrators marched there demanding entry with the slogans "Wir wollen rein" and "Wir sind das Volk", and a delegation was let in.