Wittstock

People sharing the surname Wittstock

Wittstock/Dosse is a town in the Ostprignitz Ruppin district, in north western Brandenburg, Germany.

It is located in the eastern Prignitz region on the Dosse River near the confluence with its Glinze tributary, about east of Pritzwalk and northwest of Berlin. Wittstock is situated in a terminal moraine landscape south of the Mecklenburg Lake District.

Wittstock resulted from a Slavic settlement and was first mentioned in the deed of formation for the Bishopric of Havelberg in 946. The name is possibly derived from vysoka ("high lying") in the language of the local Polabian tribes, it was later Germanized into Wiztok (1271), Witzstock (1284) and Witstock (1441), adapted folk etymologically to Low German witt ("white") and stock ("rootstock"). Obtaining the Stendal town charter on 13 September 1248 from the hands of the Havelberg Prince bishop Henry I, it is one of the oldest towns of Brandenburg. In 1251, Wittstock received an imprint of the town seal, which was one of the oldest in Brandenburg, too. Wittstock Castle, which had been built from 1244 onwards onto a Slavic foundation, served as the residence of the Havelberg Prince bishops from 1271; it is therefore also designated Old Bishop Castle (Alte Bischofsburg). The Havelberg era ended with the Protestant Reformation and the death of the last Catholic Prince bishop Busso von Alvensleben at Wittstock Castle in 1548. Up to the Thirty Years' War, the fortress was a secure stronghold—until it became the site of the 1636 Battle of Wittstock, when the troops of the Swedish Empire under Field Marshals Johan Banér and Alexander Leslie defeated the allied Imperial and Saxon forces under Elector John George I of Saxony. Followed by the outbreak of a plague epidemic two years later, Wittstock remained devastated and lost about half of its population. The redevelopment of the town was launched by the "Great Elector" Frederick William in 1658. About 1750, numerous colonists descending from Württemberg and the Palatinate settled the region.

The town's main historic monument is the Brick Gothic St Mary's Church, dating back to c. 1240. Significantly enlarged as a hall church in the late 13th century and repleted with a carved altar by Claus Berg, it was used as a cathedral by the Havelberg bishops. The Bishop's Castle was greatly restored in the 1990s and today houses a Thirty Years' War museum. Much of the elaborate late medieval defences still surround the old centre, including a 13th century gate tower, the Daberburg bergfried north of the town, and a long city wall. The wall's height, originally , today is about 4 to 7 metres.