Dobbertin Abbey is a former Benedictine monastery of monks, afterwards housed a community of nuns, and later still a women's collegiate foundation. The abbey was founded during the Christianisation of Germany in about 1220 by Prince Heinrich Borwin II of Mecklenburg and was the first field monastery in Mecklenburg. The founder gave it to the Benedictines for a community of monks. 15 years later it was turned into a Benedictine nunnery.
In 1549 the Landtag at Sagsdorf Bridge near Sternberg resolved to introduce the Lutheran Reformation into Mecklenburg. Despite violent resistance the abbey was secularised and in 1572 converted into a Lutheran collegiate foundation for noblewomen.
In the middle of the 19th century the church was restored by Georg Adolf Demmler to plans by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The work was completed in 1857.
In 1918 the abbey premises became the property of the state and were converted into a youth hostel. After World War II Soviet troops were stationed here, and destroyed much of historical interest.
From 1947 to 1991 the buildings were used as an old people's residential and care home. Then they were transferred to the responsibility of the charitable organisation of the German Evangelical Church, who set up a care home for the severely physically handicapped.
References:The Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg is situated in a strategic area on a rocky spur overlooking the Upper Rhine Plain, it was used by successive powers from the Middle Ages until the Thirty Years' War when it was abandoned. From 1900 to 1908 it was rebuilt at the behest of the German kaiser Wilhelm II. Today it is a major tourist site, attracting more than 500,000 visitors a year.
The first records of a castle built by the Hohenstaufens date back to 1147. The fortress changed its name to Koenigsburg (royal castle) around 1157. The castle was handed over to the Tiersteins by the Habsburgs following its destruction in 1462. They rebuilt and enlarged it, installing a defensive system designed to withstand artillery fire.
The fortification work accomplished over the 15th century did not suffice to keep the Swedish artillery at bay during the Thirty Years War, and the defences were overrun.