The best family-friendly hikes and walks around Dahmen

On the southern shore lies Schorssow Castle (manor house) with its English landscape park, which reaches down to the shore. The neoclassical three-winged building received its current form at the beginning of the 19th century (rebuilt by the von Moltke family). Previous owners included the Maltzans (14th–16th century) and later the Tiele-Wincklers. After the Second World War, it served as a crèche, school, and municipal office, among other things, fell into disrepair, and was extensively reconstructed starting in 1995. Since March 1997, it has been open as a castle hotel with a spa, restaurant, and lakeside terrace.

Schorssow itself was first mentioned in documents in 1372 as a fief of the Moltzan (Maltzahn) family. There was a late Romanesque patronal church (the present-day "Wüste Kirche" or "Deserted Church"), which was built in the mid-14th century under Heinrich von Moltzan and destroyed around 1540 in connection with the introduction of the Reformation (or a dispute over inheritance). Remains of the rampart and the church ruins have been preserved; the ruins were renovated in 2001/2002.

The original manor house was built as a Baroque three-wing complex between 1730 and 1740, commissioned by the court master of the hunt, von Moltke. It received its current neoclassical appearance through renovations around 1808–1812 (some sources also state 1790–1803). The building is a two-story, white-plastered three-wing structure with a central avant-corps and a hipped roof, embedded in an English landscape park by the Haussee lake.

The Malchiner See is not a noisy bathing paradise, but a retreat. Its shores are lined with dense reed belts that offer protection to many animals. With a little luck and patience, you can observe beavers, otters, or even white-tailed eagles and ospreys. In winter, large flocks of ducks and other water birds gather here.

Basedow is closely linked to the von Hahn noble family, who had been based here since the 13th century and extensively redesigned the castle and the village in the 19th century (including by the architect Friedrich August Stüler and the landscape architect Peter Joseph Lenné, who laid out the large landscape park from around 1835). The ensemble of castle, village, and park has been a listed monument since 1985.

In 1912, Friedrich Graf von Bassewitz had the Friendship Stone erected at this spot. AMICITAE SEMPITERNAE MEMOR F. COMES. BASSEWITZ MDCCCCXII TO ETERNAL FRIENDSHIP IN MEMORY ERECTED BY F. GRAF BASSEWITZ 1912 With this monument, Count Bassewitz commemorates old friendships between Burg Schlitz and Schorrsow.

The workers' houses of the former Dahmen sugar factory are a striking testament to the short but intense industrialization phase in rural Mecklenburg during the 19th century. The factory began operations in 1875 and ran until its closure in 1905 – just under 30 years. The primary reason for its early demise was the collapse of beet sugar prices due to the rapidly growing competition from numerous other factories in Germany. The factory complex included not only the production facilities themselves (which, with the exception of one storage building, have been largely demolished), but also a small factory village with infrastructure for the workforce: Housing for the factory workers (the so-called workers' houses) A tavern A general store A bakery These workers' houses were built at the same time as the factory. They served to attract and retain workers – often seasonal laborers (e.g., harvesters for the beet harvest) – as Dahmen was a very rural and remote location.

The building that housed the youth hostel originally belonged to the Dahmen sugar factory. This factory was founded between 1873 and 1875 by landowner Vollrath Levin von Maltzahn, his cousin Rudolph von Maltzahn, and Lieutenant Colonel Hubert Gustav von Tiele-Winckler. The factory operated from 1875 to 1905 – only about three decades. After the factory closed, the buildings (including the workers' housing) were preserved and continue to shape the character of Dahmen today.