Konarzewo (german: Kniephof) is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

in the administrative district of

Gmina Nowogard __NOTOC__ Gmina Nowogard is an urban-rural gmina (administrative district) in Goleniów County, West Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-western Poland. Its seat is the town of Nowogard, which lies approximately north-east of Goleniów and north-ea ...

, in

Goleniów County __NOTOC__ Goleniów County ( pl, powiat goleniowski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in West Pomeranian Voivodeship, north-western Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local ...

West Pomeranian Voivodeship The West Pomeranian Voivodeship, also known as the West Pomerania Province, is a voivodeship (province) in northwestern Poland. Its capital and largest city is Szczecin. Its area equals 22 892.48 km² (8,838.84 sq mi), and in 2021, it was i ...

, in north-western

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

. It lies approximately 9 kilometres (6 miles) northeast of

Nowogard Nowogard () ( csb, Nowògard; formerly german: Naugard) is a town in northwestern Poland, in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship. it had a population of 16,733. Name ''Nowogard'' is a combination of two Slavic terms: novi (new) and gard, which is Po ...

, 32 kilometres (20 miles) northeast of Goleniów and 53 kilometres (33 miles) northeast of the regional capital,

Szczecin Szczecin (, , german: Stettin ; sv, Stettin ; Latin: ''Sedinum'' or ''Stetinum'') is the capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the German border, it is a major s ...

History

The estate of Kniephof originally was a possession of the German noble clan von Dewitz, of

Mecklenburg Mecklenburg (; nds, label=Low German, Mękel(n)borg ) is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The largest cities of the region are Rostock, Schwerin ...

and

Pomerania Pomerania ( pl, Pomorze; german: Pommern; Kashubian: ''Pòmòrskô''; sv, Pommern) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The western part of Pomerania belongs to ...

, which eventually sold it to Prussian Major August Friedrich von Bismarck-Schönhausen. By 1780 the estate included a manor house and four family dwellings. Pałąc w Konarzewie

The 19th century German chancellor,

Otto von Bismarck Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (, ; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. From his origins in the upper class of J ...

(b. 1815), lived at Kniephof as a child, and his sister Malwine was born there in 1827.George Hesekiel: ''Das Buch vom Fürsten Bismarck''. Bielefeld und Leipzig 1873
p. 55.
/ref> From 1839 to 1845, Otto von Bismarck and his brother Bernhard jointly managed the Kniephof and two other estates. In 1868, Otto von Bismarck, since 1862 Prussian Minister-President, sold the Kniephof to his nephew Philipp von Bismarck. Until post-World War II border changes transferred the area to Poland, Kniephof belonged to the municipality of Jarchlin (now

Jarchlino Jarchlino is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Nowogard, within Goleniów County, West Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-western Poland. It lies approximately east of Nowogard, north-east of Goleniów, and north-east of the regio ...

, Poland) in the district of Naugard (now Nowogard, Poland) in the then-German province of Pomerania. The last family owner of the estate, up to 1945, was

Klaus von Bismarck Klaus von Bismarck (6 March 1912 – 22 May 1997) was the Director General of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (West German Broadcasting) from 1961 to 1976, and the president of the ARD broadcasting association in 1963-1964. He was also the president ...

. In spring 1945, as the Second World War neared its conclusion, the area was occupied by the Soviet Army. Polish settlers began to arrive, the settlement's name was changed to Konarzewo, and those German residents who had not fled or been killed in the fighting were eventually expropriated and expelled westward.

References

Prominent residents

(1815–1898) lived here between 1839 and 1846.

External links

Historical photographs of the manor house of the estate ''Kniephof''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Konarzewo, Goleniow County Villages in Goleniów County Otto von Bismarck