Wittstock

Wittstock stands on the Dosse in the Prignitz region of Brandenburg. Its castle served as a residence of the bishops of Havelberg from 1271 until the Reformation, and the last Catholic prince-bishop died there in 1548. During the Thirty Years' War, Swedish forces under Johan Banér and Alexander Leslie defeated an Imperial and Saxon army at the Battle of Wittstock in 1636. Plague followed in 1638, and the town suffered severe population losses. Elector Frederick William began its redevelopment in 1658; around 1750 settlers from Württemberg and the Palatinate came to the region. The brick walls and St Mary's Church preserve the town's earlier defensive and ecclesiastical history.