Heiligengrabe Abbey (literally in English: Holy Sepulchre; formerly also known as Techow) was founded here as a Cistercian nunnery in 1289 by Heinrich, Bishop of Havelberg and the Margrave Otto of Brandenburg, initially for 12 nuns.

The Abbess Henriette von Winterfeldt had a quarrel with the Duke of Mecklenburg, who refused to pay a debt to the abbey.

So she borrowed a large artillery piece and declared war on Mecklenburg, bombarding it across the nearby frontier.

At the time of the Lutheran Reformation, Abbess Anna von Quitzow would have nothing to do with the new denomination, and refused to pay tax.

After the Reformation the prior function of the nunnery, to provide sustenance for unmarried women mostly from local noble families, wasn't to be given up with its secularisation.