Sztynort

Sztynort (Steinort) is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Węgorzewo, within Węgorzewo County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland, close to the border with the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia. It lies approximately 11 km south-west of Węgorzewo and 87 km north-east of the regional capital Olsztyn. It is situated in the historic region of Masuria.

History


The village was the property of the Lehndorff family since 1420 (by other sources since 1565) until 1944. The current palace was built by Marie Eleonore von Lehndorff née von Dönhoff, wife of Ahasverus von Lehndorff, chamberlain of King John II Casimir of Poland, after an older building had been destroyed by Crimean Tatars in the Second Northern War in 1656. Ahasverus and Marie Eleonore often hosted Polish Baroque poet Zbigniew Morsztyn in the palace. In the 18th century, the village was often visited by leading Polish Enlightenment poet Ignacy Krasicki.

From the 18th century, the village formed part of the Kingdom of Prussia, and from 1871 it was also part of Germany. In the late 19th century, the village had a population of 536, mostly employed in agriculture, cattle breeding and fishing.

German Foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop used the palace throughout his sojourns at the nearby Wolf's Lair between 1941 and 1944. The last proprietor of the estate, Heinrich Count von Lehndorff, was executed by the Nazis for his participation in the plot against Hitler that failed with the faulty assassination attempt on 20 July 1944, at the nearby Wolf's Lair wartime military headquarters of the Nazi regime. During World War II, the Germans operated a subcamp of the Stutthof concentration camp in the village, intended for female prisoners.

After Germany's defeat in the war, the village became again part of Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the 1980s. The palace was occupied by the Red Army until 1947, and the farm buildings were used as a depot for livestock stolen by the Russians from Masuria, which was then taken to the Soviet Union. An agricultural cooperative moved in in 1950. In 2009, it could still be viewed only from the outside, the interior, neglected for more than half a century, having become badly degraded.

In November 2009, the ownership of the palace was transferred to the German-Polish Foundation for Cultural Maintenance and historic Preservation (Deutsch-Polnische Stiftung Kulturpflege und Denkmalschutz), and reconstruction of the ruins began in 2010.

The village has a population of 170.

Notable residents



 * Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort (1909-1944), resistance fighter (daughter/model)-Veruschka von Lehndorff