The abbey was founded in about 1170 by Wichmann von Seeburg, Archbishop of Magdeburg, possibly in order to prevent the territorial expansion southwards of the lords of Luckenwalde. The monastery was built in the marshes of the Nuthe by Cistercian monks from the short-lived monastery on the site of Burg Berge, otherwise Altenberg, in the Bergisches Land near Cologne. With huge effort they drained the land and turned it into productive ground. After a lengthy period of decline, monastic life in the abbey came to an end in 1553 with the Reformation.