Stone race
The Steinerne Renne is a gorge-like and approximately 2.5 km long valley section of the Holtemme near Hasserode in the Harz region in the Harz district , Saxony-Anhalt, which has been designated a natural monument . A nearby train station on the Harzquer- or Brockenbahn between Wernigerode and Drei Annen Hohne also bears this name.
Geographical location
The Steinerne Renne is located east of the Harz National Park in the Harz / Saxony-Anhalt Nature Park . It extends southwest of the Wernigerode district of Hasserode in a wooded valley section on the upper reaches of the Holtemme between the somewhat distant Renneckenberg (eastern neighbor of the Brocken ) approximately in the southwest, between the Bielstein (approx. 525 m above sea level ) in the north and the Hippeln ridge the Kontorberg ( 556.1 m ) in the south.
In the gorge, numerous small waterfalls and rapids of the Holtemme alternate with quieter river sections in its river bed interspersed with granite stones and rocks. The entrance to the gorge below the Hannekenbruch lies at about 550 m above sea level. NN and the gorge exit below the Steinerne Renne station at around 300 m above sea level. NN , which results in a height difference of around 250 m. The Kleine Renne joins the Steinerne Renne on the left at an altitude of 395 m .
The Waldgasthaus and Hotel Steinerne Renne are located in the gorge above a 519.5 m high point in the river. In addition, the restaurant Am Silbernen Mann used to be located in the gorge a little to the east of a bridge leading over the Holtemme ( 346 m ) below the Silberner Mann rock .
History and hiking
As Stone Renne or stone trough this natural spectacle was called in the early modern period. With the advent of tourism in the middle of the 19th century, the Steinerne Renne developed into one of the most visited beauties in the Harz Mountains. The Steinerne Renne station was created when the Harzquer and Brocken Railway was built.
On May 5, 1868, a lease agreement was signed with the innkeeper Heinrich Schwanecke in Hasserode and the chamber of Count Otto zu Stolberg-Wernigerode to build an inn on the Steinerne Renne below the top bridge on the left bank of the river until the end of 1879. The lease should be 10 thalers for the first six years, but then 20 thalers per year.
Knowing nothing about this lease, the merchant and city councilor Ferdinand Ahrens from Wernigerode, who died in Berlin on February 7, 1869, donated a legacy of 50 thalers to the magistrate of the city of Wernigerode in his will in order to create a small log cabin on the Steinerne Renne to protect against storms to be built. This donated money was used to build a small log house on the Renneklippen. The new destination was very well received by the population, so that Schwanecke had to submit an application to expand the inn on November 12, 1871, as it was too small to accommodate all guests, especially when it rained. This application was approved.
Heinrich Schwanecke died on April 2, 1878 and the station inspector was found out of service CA Rep, who wanted to take over the lease for 750 marks annually. Count Stolberg decided, however, that Schwanecke's son-in-law, innkeeper Hesselbarth in Hasserode, should take over the lease, as his son, Gustav Schwanecke, was already fully occupied as the leaseholder of the Brocken hotel. The 600 marks offered by Hesselbarth were accepted as the lease amount. In 1886, Hesselbarth submitted an application to enlarge the inn, which was approved. But as early as 1897 the building again proved to be too small. The extension was carried out between 1898 and 1899. During this time Hesselbarth died and his wife Friederike and his son Hans Hesselbarth completed the building for about 63,000 marks.
After Hans Hesselbarth's death in 1912, the Steinerne Renne inn, which had meanwhile been upgraded to a hotel, had to be sold. It was acquired by the Kurhaus director Carl Koch from Lüneburg for 110,000 marks. During the First World War , visitor traffic sank drastically and Carl Koch had hardly any income. The hotel remained in the family until 1956 and was then operated as an HO restaurant . In 1971 it was sold to the VEB Elektro-Apparate-Werke Berlin-Treptow "Friedrich Ebert" combine . The building served as a company holiday home with a public restaurant. During the renovation of the building, the installation of a septic tank also made the hiking trail to the restaurant, which led directly past the waterfall on the northern side of the Holtemme, impassable. Now the hiking trail leads along the southern bank. The Waldgasthaus and Hotel Steinerne Renne is now included as No. 28 in the system of stamping points of the Harz hiking pin. The gorge can be hiked through completely.
Steinerne Renne hydroelectric power station
The hydroelectric power plant of the same name , commissioned in 1899, is located near the exit of the gorge and next to the Steinerne Renne train station.It was used to supply power to the gravel and granite works built by Granitwerke Steinerne Renne AG . In 1943 it became the property of the city of Wernigerode, which used it to supply energy to the Hasserode district. From 1945 it was operated by the VEB Energiekombinat Magdeburg, later by the VEB repair shop for batteries and floor conveyors . After it was privatized as WERBAT GmbH , the power plant was sold to a private owner in 1995. In 2002 it was sold back to the city that now operates it as a technical monument .
In the forest, the water is led from the small basin of a weir below the Steinerne Renne inn via an approximately 1.7 km long closed canal to the computer house , where debris is sifted out. After the end of the canal, it falls through an approximately 160 m long pressure pipe to the power plant. Two Pelton turbines , one of which is from the time it was built, generate around one million kilowatt hours of electricity a year .
Concentration camp subcamps
On the site of the former granite and gravel works, which had been used as the Steinerne Renne brickworks since 1944 and for the construction of parts for aircraft engines, a subcamp was built under the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, in which initially French, Belgian and Italian forced laborers , then 500 Prisoners from the previous concentration camp external command on Veckenstedter Weg in Wernigerode were used, who were sent on a death march to Leitmeritz (today Litoměřice , Czech Republic) on April 10, 1945, the day before the camp was occupied by American troops .
literature
- Georg von Gynz-Rekowski: On the prehistory of the Hotel Steinerne Renne . In: Neue Wernigeröder Zeitung , 2 (1991), H. 14/15, p. 9
- Christine Trosin: Renaissance of the Renne Hotel. Popular excursion destination torn from a deep slumber . In: Neue Wernigeröder Zeitung , 11 (2000), no. 20, p. 5
- Christine Trosin: Green electricity from green forests. Stadtwerke Wernigerode again owner of the Steinerne Renne hydroelectric power station after 60 years . In: Neue Wernigeröder Zeitung , 14 (2003), no. 3, p. 7
- Jörg Brückner : The Steinerne Renne and the Schwanecke and Hesselbart families. Addendum to the article in NWZ 2/04 "Vicissitudes at the waterfall" . In: Neue Wernigeröder Zeitung , 15 (2004), no. 4, p. 21
- Stone race. Dream path with a sounding ambience . In: Mystische Pfade im Harz , (2012), pp. 26–29
- Otmar Groß: The hotel at the Steinerne Renne waterfall . In: Memories from Wernigerode , Vol. 1, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Papierflieger-Verlag, 2012, pp. 193–196.
Web links
- Steinerne Renne on harzlife.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Saxony-Anhalt viewer
- ^ Georg von Gynz-Rekowski: On the prehistory of the Hotel Steinerne Renne . In: Neue Wernigeröder Zeitung , 2 (1991), H. 14/15, p. 9
- ↑ Jörg Brückner : The stone race and the families Schwanecke and Hesselbart. Addendum to the article in NWZ 2/04 "Vicissitudes at the waterfall" . In: Neue Wernigeröder Zeitung , 15 (2004), no. 4, p. 21
- ↑ Harzer Wanderadel: Stempelstelle 28 - Gasthaus Steinerne Renne ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on harzer-wandernadel.de
Coordinates: 51 ° 48 ′ 39 ″ N , 10 ° 42 ′ 25 ″ E