History of Stölln @museum.de

The small village of Stölln – or Stöllen, according to old maps – lies in the middle of the Rhinow district and is surrounded by hills large and small. Legend has it they were formed when a giantess stumbled and lost vast piles of sand from her apron. In fact, Gollenberg, Weinberg, Hauptmannsberg and the other local hills are left over from the last Ice Age.

In the 12th century, settlers arrived from the Netherlands, Flanders and Alsace. They built dykes to drain the flood plains of the Dosse and Havel rivers and create arable land. King Friedrich the Second of Prussia also settled colonists here. They brought peat cutting, brick-making and dairy farming with them to the Rhinow district. When Friedrich visited the area in 1779 and gazed into the distance from the Gollenberg, he is said to have exclaimed enthusiastically:

"That is true! This runs counter to my expectations! This is beautiful! I must tell you, all of you who worked on it, you were honest folk."

Local records first mention the village of Stölln in 1441 – three centuries before Friedrich’s visit. It’s listed as the von der Hagen family manor. In the mid-19th century, the family’s old manor house was demolished and a distillery was built in its place. That’s the building we’re standing in now.

Today, potatoes are no longer fermented and distilled into hard liquor here. The Old Distillery has been painstakingly renovated and remodelled, and now houses the Lilienthal Centre. The model on your left shows what the schnapps factory looked like a century ago. Many features are still recognisable today. For example, the grey double door is where you entered the building earlier.

While you were outside, you may also have noticed the large-scale mural on the building next door. It’s an illustrated chronicle that has graced the outside wall of that historic barn since the village celebrated its 575th anniversary in 2016.

_________________________________________

Zitat Friedrich nach: Horst Schwenzer, Die Geschichte der „Lady Agnes“, hrsg. vom Otto– Lilienthal– Verein Stölln 2018, S. 5.