Sanitz is located approximately 15 km (9 miles) east of Rostock.

It is subdivided into the following districts: Sanitz is mentioned in the sources in 1256 when it was called Kirchdorf.

A subsequent mention occurs in an agreement of 2 June 1291 involving Henry I of Mecklenburg-Güstrow, at the time the local Bishop, who granted the lordship of the Rostock region to his ward Nicholas whose own heirs would retain these privileges.

In the fourteenth century Sanitz is recorded as having been held by asuccession of vassals such as Bernard Kopmann from Rostock, the knight Siegfried of Plön, Reimar von Wedel, the Rostock council member Dietrich Horn, along with his son, the major Dippold Horn.

In 1552 the monastery fell victim to a programme of Secularization in the area and the village was transferred as a ducal domain to Robnitz and thereafter leased out to various land owning families.