Due to its picturesque location in a region of forests and lakeland, the castle was the summer residence of the bishops of Havelberg in the Middle Ages.

In 1631, during the Thirty Years' War, the King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus issued a writ of protection (Schutzbrief) for the lords of Plattenburg.

In 1940 French prisoners of war were billeted in the chapel wing, part of the castle serving as a military hospital.

That same year, an association was founded to promote and preserve the Plattenburg and restoration began which has continued to the present (2008).

In 1995, a memorial stone was erected in front of the varlets' house by the Federation of Expellees to the victims of forced displacement after the Second World War.