Eldena Abbey

Only ruins survive, which are well known as a frequent subject of Caspar David Friedrich's paintings, including the famous Abtei im Eichwald ("Abbey in the Oak Forest").

After the Battle of Bornhöved in 1227 the Danes withdrew from this part of their former territories, and despite some competition from the princes of Rügen, the Duke of Pomerania, Wartislaw III, was able in 1248/49 to press the abbey into subinfeudating Greifswald to him.

Throughout the 13th century, Eldena Abbey organized the cultivation and settlement of its growing estates in the Ostsiedlung process, allocating and founding Wendish, Danish and German villages.

Renewed public interest led to the beginning of restoration work in 1828, and on the basis of designs by the Prussian landscape gardener Peter Joseph Lenné a park was laid out on the abbey precinct.

Still more works were authorised from 1996 onwards jointly by both the State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments (Landesamt für Denkmalpflege) and the town of Greifswald, which eventually led to the declaration of the ruins as a cultural site of the Pomerania Euroregion.