article_snippet: The regime concentrated on the cities and neglected the countryside, so castles and seaside resorts deteriorated.
article_snippet: Towering medieval cathedrals and customs houses on market squares as big as football pitches are built of ancient revolutionary red-brick, moulded and baked from the sodden clay.
article_snippet: The castles were full of refugees,' says Freiherr Helmuth von Maltzahn, proprietor of 16th-century Schloss Ulrichshusen, which his ancestor Ulrich built among the inland lakes.
article_snippet: Helmuth, born in 1949, bought back Helmuth burnt-out family home and turned it into a 40-room hotel.