From 1945 until the fall of the Wall Wiligrad Castle was not to be found on any map for political reasons: Willigrad Castle, the less known but all the more beautiful building in the Mecklenburg castles landscape. Around 1900, Duke Johann Albrecht zu Mecklenburg-Schwerin planned the impressive neo-renaissance building with the architect Albrecht Haupt and built it on the steep bank of Lake Schwerin.
The name "Willigrad" has an interesting historical background. The unusual name refers to the Obotritenburg of the same name as the "nucleus" of the Mecklenburg Princely House, which was handed down in an early medieval Arabic source. Wiligrad was therefore more than a “normal” princely seat, as Johann Albrecht clearly emphasized his ancestry as a distinctive feature of the bourgeois society of his time when he came up with a name. [Source]
