of William I as King of Prussia in 1861. The duke was an was an hereditary member of the upper houses of Württemberg and Prussia. In 1897, prince Christian Kraft (1848-1926) succeeded his father as owner of the Sławięcice palace. During his time, the mansion received visitors like tsar Nicholas II of Russia and emperor William II. The last Hohenlohe to own the palace was prince Johann (Hans) zu Hohenlohe-Oehringen (1858–1945). During the Second World War, the Hohenlohe family fled first to their summer palace in Oppurg and later to Neuenstein in Hohenlohe. Since then, Schloss Neuenstein has remained the main residence of the princes up to this day. Schloss Slawentzitz with its park and greenhouses were severely damaged in the fights with the Red Army in January 1945. The ruins burnt down completely in 1948, but in the 1950s youth camps were still organized in its interiors. Unfortunately, the palace was regularly plundered and finally demolished in the 1970s. Only an entrance portico remains. Gleiwitz incident The Gleiwitz incident was a false flag attack on the radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz (then Germany and now Gliwice, Poland) staged by Nazi Germany on the night of 31 August 1939. Along with some two dozen similar incidents, the attack was manufactured by Germany as a casus belli to justify the invasion of Poland. Despite the German government using the attack as a justification to go to war with Poland, the Gleiwitz assailants were not Polish but were German SS officers wearing Polish uniforms. The planning and preparations for this operation were carried out from the Sławięcice palace. Architecture The old castle was a massive square building with a single roof and was surrounded by a moat. After a lightning strike, the old castle burned down in 1827. A new three-storey mansion was built on the same site in 1830, with side wings added between 1867 and 1868. The mansion had around 45 rooms including a large ballroom. Gardens Prince Frederick Louis of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen created an English landscape park around the palace. It is one of the four largest gardens in the Opole region. Today Nothing remains of the main building itself, except the entrance portico. The landscape park is still there containing the ruins of a mausoleum, a gardener's home, and a baroque garden pavilion built by Adolf Magnus von Hoym between 1716 and 1720. References Literature External links Castles