Dotti Castle

George Leopold Dotti was a merchant and leatherware manufacturer of Italian heritage in Berlin. In 1885, he bought this property in Neuenhagen for 570,000 marks and built a manor home with a grand driveway, outside staircase, half-timbered gables, and an arched main entrance. Dotti himself was involved in designing the estate’s gardens. The park’s main boulevard, lined with Linden trees, is still recognizable. Like many estate owners in the area at the time, Dotti became Neuenhagen’s chief official. But in 1898, he sold the manor house to the Union Club (which owned the Hoppegarten racetrack) and built a new home on the Königsallee (which is now the Hauptstrasse). Still owned by the Union Club, the Dotti Castle would later play an ignoble role in the 1920 Kapp Putsch against the Weimar Republic government, when the Freikorps, or German paramilitary volunteers who were part of the Putsch used it as an arsenal. During the Nazi era, the Nazi leadership appropriated the castle and turned it into a training center. After World War II, the building was modified many times and became a hospital, which it remained until 1994. The Dotti Castle and its surrounding parkland is now in private hands.

Address: Am Krankenhaus, 15366 Neuenhagen bei Berlin

Translated by Rebecca M. Stuart