Marquardt is in great demand as a film location. Not only for series like Babylon Berlin or music videos with Silbermond and Scooter, but also for real blockbusters. Steven Spielberg shot scenes for his agent thriller Bridge of Spies here with Tom Hanks and Hollywood star Kristen Stewart walked through dark corridors as Lady Di in Spencer. When the film crews leave, the castle falls back into its slumber. It’s been like this for years.
Marquardt has a lot to offer even without the spotlight: “Descriptions of the castle, park and landscape, historical, anecdotal, family stuff and haunted stories. In the end,” Fontane wrote to his publisher Wilhelm Hertz, “you can’t ask for more.” The castle alone is different from the ranks of Brandenburg estates. Not just architectural. It was a mansion and a hotel, a school for the deaf and a gardening school.
You won’t find out anything about it on site. And the morbid castle, which can be rented for weddings and events, is in need of renovation at almost every nook and cranny. If someone asks about the history, reports the former castle manager, then only one thing is of interest: Where is the Blue Grotto?
It is said to have been built somewhere between the castle and Schlänitzsee, embedded in a hill. The mysterious grotto used to communicate with long-dead celebrities. We stand quite at a loss on the bare castle terrace and look through the shady park to the silvery lake. The view is limited on both sides by overgrown elevations, under which the remains of the grotto might be hidden. It is repeatedly reported that fragments of the blue cinder blocks that lined the grotto can be found in the park. However, the various brochures about Marquardt do not say exactly where it is. Fontane saw her before grass grew over the ghost story. His description in the “Wanderungen” is a last contemporary witness report and his sketch in the notebook is the only surviving illustration. But one after anonther.
Ghost grotto for the king
The grotto was created by Johann Rudolph von Bischoffwerder, who acquired the Marquardt estate in 1795 – and whom Fontane expressly emphasizes, even if he misspelled it (“Bischofswerder”). With him, Marquardt entered “the series of historical places”. Bischoffwerder was a favorite par excellence. After he joined the circle of the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, who was three years his junior, later as King Friedrich Wilhelm II., he quickly gained the confidence of the insecure heir to the throne, advised him on political issues and recognized his weaknesses, which he knew how to use to his advantage. To the displeasure of his uncle Frederick the Great, the crown prince was less concerned with politics than with his mistresses.
What probably bothered Old Fritz the most: Friedrich Wilhelm did not believe in the Enlightenment, but in magic and sought contact with the dead in spiritistic sessions. This was definitely in line with the trend of the time. People met in secret lodges and hoped for mystical experiences by summoning spirits. Bischoffwerder was also fond of magic and mysticism. In 1781 he even succeeded in having the crown prince admitted to the order of the Gold and Rosicrucian under the name “Ormerus Magnus”. The Rosicrucian Friedrich Wilhelm prophesied that on the occasion of his accession to the throne, “the secret superiors from the East” would come to Berlin and bestow magical powers on him as the new ruler.
Although no superiors appeared after the coronation in 1786, Bischoffwerder did not fall out of favor. On the contrary: his career went uphill from then on. The generous financial support given to the acquisition of Marquardt showed how much he had risen in favor with the king. With Bischoffwerder, “a new era” did indeed begin in Marquardt. Friedrich Wilhelm II first came to the christening of his eldest son and later “in the twilight hour” to the necromancy. The king was led into the grotto under an acacia hill, lined with blue cinders, where – accompanied by soft singing “like the tones of a harp” – he made contact with historical celebrities such as the Roman emperor Marc Aurel or the philosopher Leibniz.
Fontane unmasks the magic
Fontane inspected the remains of the “ghost grotto” during his flying visit to Marquart in 1869, sketched a floor plan and unmasked the magic with his inscription “at chest height 2 secret entrance holes offset with stones”. The grotto, he then writes in the “Havelland” volume, was “double-walled” and a member of the order “directed the ‘musical performance’ from this hiding place and gave the answers.”
When he visited, the spook had gone and the grotto had collapsed. “Only the outer walls, with the exception of the front wall, have survived and are inserted into the acacia hill. Shrubs are now stretching across it.” Fontane would have done the trackers a great favor if he had drawn a site plan in Marquardt, as he did elsewhere. Castle, lake and in between the location of the grotto – it could be so easy today.
“Yes, your Fontane does not help with the search,” says Wolfgang Grittner and looks skeptically at his notes on Marquardt. The doctor of veterinary medicine has been a local chronicler since 1988 and knows every corner of his territory. Grittner presents us with a copy of a park plan from 1823 from his archive. The draftsman is none other than Peter Joseph Lenné, who was commissioned by Bischoffwerder’s son to redesign the Marquardter Gutspark. The grotto is actually marked between the castle and Schlänitzsee, on two winding paths.
On site, the presumed location is no longer covered by “shrubs” as in the case of Fontane, but by a small primeval forest, apparently impenetrable. Not for Grittner. However, he does not want to dig himself, but wants to get to the bottom of the grotto with scientific support. And a ground-penetrating radar, which uses electromagnetic waves to investigate the subsoil. The hill would have to be cleared for that. Grittner wants to stay tuned. So that we don’t leave the park without a result, he hands us a blue cinder block – as haptic proof of a story that has not yet been told to the end.
In which Fontane-Ort not only his sketch of the grotto will soon be exhibited, we will tell you next week.
