Gut Drosedow

VManteuffel, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

At around 1,330 hectares the largest estate in family ownership. Drosedow was acquired in 1840 by Charlotte von Gerlach née von Beyme, wife of Landrat Carl Heinrich von Gerlach, from the Manteuffel family.

Chronicle

1. 1170/1177

   First mention: Duke Casimir I grants the village of Drosdouwe to Danish Cistercians for the founding of Kolbatz Abbey.

2. 1445–1682 und 1778–1840

   Previous owners: the von Manteuffel family.

3. 1840

   Charlotte von Gerlach née von Beyme, wife of district administrator Carl Heinrich von Gerlach, acquires Drosedow from the von Manteuffel family.

4. 1858

   August von Gerlach inherits Drosedow and leases it to Carl Schimmelpfennig. The tenant family runs the estate until 1945 and makes a name with modern cattle breeding – Karl Schimmelpfennig is elected to the Reichstag in 1920.

5. 1863

   Landrat August von Gerlach disputes with the von Manteuffels over the drainage levy jointly charged on Drosedow and the neighbouring estate of Sternin (file in the Secret State Archives, XV. HA Rep. 38d no. 4639).

6. 1866

   The official tax assessment gives the Drosedow estate district 5,018.39 Morgen – about 1,281 hectares – and the village district 1,843.91 Morgen with a net yield of 1,241.09 Taler.

7. 1895

   Drosedow gets a station: an official gazette lists the place as the first intermediate stop on the new Kolberg light railway, before Trienke, Plauenthin, Groß Jestin and Semmerow. The 63-kilometre narrow-gauge line from Roman to Kolberg was opened on 21 July 1895 by the Kolberg Light Railways company; after Trienke come Plauenthin, Groß Jestin, Semmerow, Gurrin, Kanzenberg and Sellnow.

8. 1909

   The county description "Der Kolberg-Körliner Kreis" describes the estate in working order: some 1,330 hectares – matching the 1,281 hectares of the 1866 tax assessment – owned by von Gerlach-Parsow and leased to the widow A. Schimmelpfennig. The tenant family thus carried the farm on beyond the death of Carl Schimmelpfennig. The same book records that Drosedow belonged, with one interruption, to the von Manteuffel from the fourteenth century until they sold it in 1840.

9. 1911/12

   Carl August von Gerlach-Parsow has old entries in the Drosedow land register cleared through public notices at the Kolberg district court: 103 hectares registered since 1853 to the farmer August Meyer, a share of Johann Kohls and a mortgage of 200 thalers (Reichsanzeiger 3 October 1911, 2 May 1912).

10. 1924–1934

    Carl August von Gerlach-Parsow sells land to peasant owners and craftsmen from Drosedow and Simötzel to enlarge their holdings – part of the settlement and debt-relief policy of those years (Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 1973). The Kolberg local history puts the sales at 47 hectares in total and dates them to 1931/32 – the two accounts differ over the years.

11. 1937

    697 inhabitants in 135 households; the village comprises the manor, an outlying farm, a mill, a brickworks and the Waldhof. The parish church is attested since 1494.

12. 1942

    At the Köslin livestock show "the three breeding bulls from Drosedow" of the tenant Mrs Schimmelpfennig all win prizes – the tenant family of 1858 still farms the estate during the war (Kösliner Zeitung no. 269, September 1942).

13. bis 1945

    The manor estate (~1,330 ha) belongs to Carl August von Gerlach-Parsow, who thereby unites all the family's Pomeranian holdings in a single hand.

14. 1945

    The family holding ends that Charlotte von Beyme had established by her own purchase in 1840.