Exhibition Słońsk – Station 4:
The panel shows a timeline of the castle’s history. On the right side is a relief of the 17th century front façade and corresponding explanations in Braille. In addition, a QR code links 3D files for visualisation.
The former Sonneburg Castle of the Order looks back on an eventful and dramatic history, which almost led to its final end with a devastating fire in 1975.
Timeline on the history of the Order Castle:
- 1295 First mention of a noble manor house
- 1341 Authorisation to build a fortified castle
- 1426/27 The castle was acquired by the Knights of St. John of the Bailiwick of Brandenburg.
- 1545-64 The Order builds a new castle and a church.
- The castle is devastated during the Thirty Years’ War.
- 1662-68 Reconstruction under Herrenmeister Johann Moritz von Nassau-Siegen in the style of the Dutch Baroque.
- It remains the seat of the lord masters of the Order of St John until 1945.
- 1945 The castle comes under the new Polish administration and stands empty from around 1960.
- 1975 The castle burns down almost completely under unknown circumstances.
- 2019-23 The ruins of the castle are upgraded for tourism as part of a German-Polish development project.
The Mauritshuis in The Hague (NL)
Already in 1633, Johann Moritz von Nassau-Siegen built a city palace in what is now The Hague, before coming to Sonnenburg. The Mauritshuis has survived the test of time and is today one of the most important Dutch art museums.
Seinerzeit verkörperte es einen architektonischen Neuanfang, den der niederländische Architekturhistoriker Terwen wie folgt zusammenfasste:
“… it is still regarded as the bright and piercing fanfare with which Dutch classicism took hold.”
The Mauritshuis in The Hague and the Order Castle in Sonnenburg were almost identical in construction.
