[3] German Foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop used the palace throughout his sojourns at the nearby Wolf's Lair between 1941 and 1944.

During World War II, the Germans operated a subcamp of the Stutthof concentration camp in the village, intended for female prisoners.

[5][6] After Germany's defeat in the war, the village became again part of Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the 1980s.

The palace was occupied by the Red Army until 1947, and the farm buildings were used as a depot for livestock stolen by the Russians from Masuria, which was then taken to the Soviet Union.

In November 2009, the ownership of the palace was transferred to the German-Polish Foundation for Cultural Maintenance and historic Preservation (Deutsch-Polnische Stiftung Kulturpflege und Denkmalschutz), and reconstruction of the ruins began in 2010.