Mennokate Garden

http://e.menno-kate.de/

A life of persecution and expulsion is more concerned with finding places to hide than to leaving behind visible monuments. But the Menno-Kate is an exception – a place where the Anabaptist spirit of the 16th century can still be felt. Although hidden among tall trees, it is clearly visible on the outskirts of Bad Oldesloe.

Originally it housed a print shop, where the writings of Menno Simons were reproduced, including the second edition of his Foundation Book, but also a treatise against the Reformed leader of Emden, Johannes a Lasco.

Menno Simons may have lived temporarily in the cottage. Most certainly he spent his last years, after his expulsion from Wismar in 1554 until his death in 1561, among a circle of Anabaptists who found refuge in the nearby village of Wüstenfelde that belonged to to the Fresenburg Estate.

The Menno-Kate cottage is constructed out of field stones and old-style bricks rendered in white. The cottage and the linden tree at the front are both protected monuments. The linden tree is supposed to have been planted by Menno Simons himself.