Burg Osten: A Medieval Bridge and Toll Castle in Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 3.1
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page9 sections
History
Burg Osten is a medieval lowland castle in Germany, near Schmarsow in the municipality of Kruckow. Probably built around 1200–1250, it stood beside the Tollense during the Middle Ages and served as both a bridge castle and a toll castle. Its position formed part of a wider chain of fortifications in the river valley.
Foundation and the von der Osten family
The castle occupied a strategic position on the road between Schmarsow and Roidin. Because the Tollense was navigable at the time, the site could control movement across the river and collect tolls from traffic using this route. The surrounding landscape was relatively flat, so the castle relied on its watercourse, ditches, and artificial earthworks rather than a naturally elevated hill.
The noble von der Osten family, known in the Demmin area from the mid-thirteenth century, may have given its name to the castle. Around 1319, Wedige von der Osten, a member of the family and bailiff of Demmin, became the first recorded member of the lineage to be established at Burg Osten. The Ostener estate then included Schmarsow, Vanselow, Roidin, and Teusin.
Winterfeld and Maltzahn rule
Burg Osten soon passed to the von Winterfeld(t) family. Henning von Winterfeld, marshal of Pomerania-Stettin, temporarily supported Mecklenburg during the First War of Rügen Succession, a conflict from 1326 to 1328 over competing claims to the principality of Rügen and the wider interests of Pomerania and Mecklenburg. He returned to the Pomeranian side before the conflict ended.
Around 1330, Henning’s son-in-law Ludolf Maltzahn succeeded him. Under the Maltzahn family, Burg Osten developed into an important political and economic center and became one of the most powerful castles in Pomerania. From the second half of the fourteenth century, possession of the estate was connected with the hereditary office of land marshal for the Duchy of Pomerania-Stettin. This high territorial office included military leadership and representation of the nobility. The Maltzahns continued to hold and exercise it after the Stettin ducal line died out in 1464.
Until the end of the sixteenth century, the castle and estate were jointly held by the Osten-Kummerow and Sarow branches of the von Maltzahn family.
Decline and destruction
Burg Osten lost its importance after the Thirty Years’ War, the major European conflict fought from 1618 to 1648. The castle was eventually dismantled for building materials, including material used for the manor house at Schmarsow.
The part of the Ostener estates north of the Tollense became a forest estate. In 1855, Woldemar von Heyden-Cartlow acquired Osten together with Schmarsow and Borgwall. The Demmin narrow-gauge railway crossed the Ostener forest from 1897, while the half-timbered forester’s house there burned in 1945. River-straightening works in 1969 removed the rampart and substantial parts of the castle complex. Burg Osten is now a ruin.
Remains
Burg Osten survives as a two-part fortified complex in the Tollense valley. A rectangular outer bailey occupied the northeastern side, while the main castle lay to the southwest on a peninsula within the river. A water-filled ditch still separates the two sections. The surviving remains represent only part of the former site, because the northeastern rampart and major portions of the complex were removed during the 1969 straightening of the Tollense.
Two-part fortification
Northeastern outer bailey
The outer bailey survives as a plateau about 1.2 meters high, measuring approximately 60 meters from north to south and 50 meters from east to west. A ditch averaging 12 meters in width protects it, and sections of substantial masonry remain visible along the ditch.
Southwestern main castle
The main castle occupied the peninsula formed within the Tollense. Its remains include identifiable tower foundations and tower mounds, which preserve evidence of the defensive structures that once stood within this section of the complex.
Earlier layout and surviving setting
A map from 1696 shows an earlier arrangement in which the Tollense completely surrounded both castle sections. It also depicts the two-part fortification with a large rampart in front of its northeastern side. The later loss of that rampart and much of the castle has left the ditch, the outer-bailey plateau, and the foundations and mounds of the main castle as the principal surviving elements of Burg Osten.
