Bergische Landwehr

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Trench of the Bergisch-Märkische Landwehr near Filde, Radevormwald
The Landwehr at Radevormwald - Landwehr

The Bergische Landwehr is a prehistoric system of wall-ditch systems ( Landwehren ), which were originally provided with impenetrable hedges (so-called Gebück ) to secure the national borders of the Duchy of Berg . They ran parallel to the borders at different distances, mostly on the slopes of stream valleys.

interpretation

The Landwehr was described and discussed in more detail in various writings. The authors include Anton Fahne (1865), Wilhelm Crecelius , Adolf Werth , Gustav Löns , Gottfried Dütschke, Emil Wahl (1959) Hermann Kießling, Erich Schultze-Gebhardt 1980, Otto Bürger 1988, Justus Bockemühl 1987, Gerd Helbeck 2003, Martin Kollmann 2007 and above all Wilhelm Engels 1935 with the standard work Die Landwehren in the peripheral areas of the Duchy of Berg from 1938.

Since a dating based on finds has not been possible up to now, the chronological classification is difficult. Some, mostly older, assumptions suggest that border disputes between the Saxons and the Franks in Carolingian times prompted the construction of a first Landwehr. A former turnpike in the Marscheider Forest area was called "Frankenbaum" according to Helbeck. The prevailing opinion is currently based on an establishment in the High or Late Middle Ages , in which the Duchy of Berg tried to secure its national borders. Kollmann. notes, however, that the state of weapon technology speaks against a system in the late Middle Ages, as a hedge no longer offered adequate protection at that time. But this is in contradiction to documented events from the Thirty Years' War , which still showed a certain benefit there.

“First I find it mentioned in the Weistum Much , from 1557, where punishment is threatened in body and property, who should dare to devastate them. Then it can be seen from the waiter's invoices of the Windeck office that it was leased as the property of the Duke von Berg before 1620. "

- From "The old parish" Much Prof. K. Oberdörfer, Rheinland-Verlag 1923

It shows that the line of land hedges was state owned by the Dukes of Berg. From the 16th century onwards, the Landwehr was mostly no longer needed as a protective structure and was therefore leased to the neighboring farmers for a fixed sum. A ducal Landwehr commission was sent to measure its course for the purpose of calculating the rent. Most and mostly also the first written evidence about the Bergische Landwehr comes from these commission reports and other camera documents about the subsequent lease. The beech and oak wood standing on the land defense was charred by the tenant and had to be replanted by the tenant in a precisely defined manner. In 1802, during the French period, the remains of the Landwehr were parceled out by Grand Duke Joachim Murat and sold to the public.

The maintenance and use of the Landwehr as a fortification and customs border securing the peace of the land is historically secured from the beginning of modern times to the 17th century. At the old Mauspfad near Urbach there is a former customs station called the "Grengel" : Grindel, Grendel or Grengel are synonymous with bars, bars or bars.

Numerous place names, parts of place names or field names in the region that are still used today go back to the Landwehr. In addition to the obvious field name Landwehr , forms can often be found that refer to terms of the rampart and ditch system, such as a barrier for a restricted passage or a reel for a pedestrian passage with a turnstile .

course

Assuming a high or late medieval complex, the fortification mainly secured the territory on the eastern border with the county of Mark . Therefore one speaks here of the "outer Bergische Landwehr". Further landweists can also be found on the border with the Duchy of Kleve in the north and in the east on the borders of the Homburg and Gimborn rulers , the Archdiocese of Cologne and the neighboring areas of Sayn-Hachenburg , Sayn-Altenkirchen and Wildenburg rulership in the south . According to Kollmann, however, the idea that the Landwehr facility was due to disputes with the county of Mark can be convincingly refuted, because the relationship with the Brandenburg neighbors was not so permanently disturbed at the turn of the 14th century that the lengthy construction would be permanent expensive entertainment could have been worth it. However, this is in contradiction to the sometimes armed conflict between the Bergisch and Mark regions in the aftermath of the Battle of Kleverhamm in 1397.

According to Kollmann, the so-called "Inner Bergische Landwehr", which is archaeologically unoccupied, secured the old settlements in the Rhine Valley against the sparsely populated (and in the early Middle Ages Saxon) woodland in the higher, eastern areas. It may be assumed that parts of the territorial land defense were already used in the early Middle Ages and before, as well as after the High Middle Ages, to secure villages or farms and were not or no longer in connection with a uniform land fortification. Since the finds are very poor, there is hardly any possibility of making a clear statement.

Partial section with eastern national borders.

The entire system of the external land defense stretched from the Rhine near Duisburg via Mülheim an der Ruhr , Kettwig , Heiligenhaus , Velbert , Neviges , Barmen , Beyenburg , Radevormwald , Kreuzberg , Rönsahl , Lindlar- Remshagen, Engelskirchen , Drabenderhöhe , Ruppichteroth , then the Lordship of Homburg circling to Sieg and further back to the Rhine near Bad Honnef .

It migrated with the changes in the territorial boundaries, so that there are older and younger lines running parallel in parts. However, in many places the courses do not coincide with the known historical events. Since the hedges were also well suited for enclosing cattle pastures and as a guideline for wolf hunting, it is also possible that such "usefulness" for the farmers who were forced to build the land weirs influenced the course of the line.

The Landwehr consisted of one to three earth walls with a shallow trench in between. There were deeper trenches at the foot of the ramparts. Sources testify the fouling with impenetrable thorns hedges in a so-called Gebück . This hedge provided the actual protective function of the Landwehr. A fortification with palisades made of tree trunks can be excluded due to the length of the Landwehr and the immense wood requirement.

Few remnants of the Landwehr are still partially preserved and in sections are protected as a ground monument.

Landwehr within today's Wuppertal

In the urban area of ​​today's Wuppertal there were two Landwehr lines running parallel, but they are broken or unclear in several places. According to Engels, its course can be documented from a directory of a Beyenburger rentmeister account from 1759/60.

The back line, also called Elberfelder Landwehr , separated the Bergisches Amt Elberfeld from the Amt Beyenburg , to which the neighboring Barmen also belonged. It proceeded according to Engels from the Horather Schanze ( ski jump ) to Hohenhager Bach (in the upper reaches Hagerbach; Hagen = hedge a Landwehr), on the west side to the Uellendahl , then turned north on to the quarters Ostersbaum (originally Mostert tree , you suspects a clearing tree here , which was guarded by the Mostert family), then on over the Hardtberg to Wupperfurt near Haspel . On the other side of the river, it ran along the Bendahler Bach to the Dorn (Gedörn) farm . There the Landwehr turned to the east and ran via Lichtscheid , Erbschlö , the Marscheider Forest , north of Herbringhausen , via Sondern to Beyenburg . Three preserved sections (two near Dorn, one in the Marscheider Bachtal ) are protected by the city as ground memorials. The northern connection to the proven Landwehr of the Hardenberg rule is not secured, according to Bürger. At today's deserted Delle there was a branch to the northeast along the Schmalenhofer Bach over the Blombachtal to Werbsiepen. There the trail is lost.

Remains of the Landwehr near the Herbringhauser Dam

The front line, also called Barmer Landwehr , begins at today's city limits to Sprockhövel on Hatzfeld near the Sprockhövel village of Horath , runs along the Leimbach (Lehmbach, Lehmbecke) in the direction of Wupper (here also the Landwehrstraße ), which is in today's center on the Alter Markt at the former Schlipperhof (Schlippe = Landwehr passageway) was crossed. It ran through the Fischertal and the Barmer plants , past the Toelleturm (here a preserved section is protected as a ground monument) uphill, crossed the Murmelbach valley and descended into the lower Blombach valley at Konradswüsten. Then it followed the Wupper to Beyenburg on its west side. In the north it probably had a connection to a Brandenburg Landwehr line that stretched in a straight line from the Horather Schanze to Haßlinghausen . The Barmer Landwehr was not a border line, as the Bergisch-Mark border is up to 2.5 kilometers to the east. It may have served as a remote strategic line of defense. It followed the dividing line between upper and lower barmen, but was not the cause.

In Beyenburg, the Barmer Landwehr line ended at Beyenburg Castle , the Elberfeld line crosses the Wupper one kilometer upstream and, according to Engels and Helbeck, continues uninterrupted via Öge and Spreel in the section between the Wupper and Ennepe rivers .

Section of the Elberfelder Landwehr between the Wupper and the Ennepe

A section between the Wupper and the Ennepetalsperre is best preserved. There it is clearly visible over a long distance, mostly in the forest, more than twelve kilometers long Landwehr ditch and roughly forms the border from Radevormwald to Ennepetal and Breckerfeld .

The section begins at Vorm Baum , turns east shortly before Remlingrade , crosses the federal highway 483 at Landwehr , crosses the Heilenbeckertal when shipping and runs in a wide arc around Filde and then, turning south, is flooded by the Ennepetalsperre . It surrounds Wellershausen and Borbeck and ends southeast of Klaukenburg .

The Landwehr protected the square of Radevormwald, Borbeck, Filde, Remlingrade.

Between the Hofschaft Singerhof and Heilenbecker dam went in Landwehr ditch until the 1980s a marked Radevormwalder local hiking trail .

Landwehr Ispingrade-Stoote

A much smaller section can be found in the south of Radevormwald between the Wiebach and the town of Marke.

Landwehr Overath-Federath

From Federath over the Heckberg further in an easterly direction a Landwehr ran parallel to the Brüderstraße , which in the 16./17. Century was destroyed by mining activity. This Landwehr was no longer of any importance at that time, which until then consisted of protecting the lead and silver mines Bliesenbach and Silberkaule, which were active in the 13th century, and the settlements of the miners from robbers passing by on Brüderstraße. The mines were already abandoned in the 13th century, the Landwehr still runs today as the border between the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis and the Oberbergischer Kreis.

According to Engels, there is evidence of a section at Lorkenhöhe on Brüderstraße, where a district is still called Landwehr today . Furthermore, a line from Loope to Dönselberg near Schalken, where it came across Brüderstraße. In Drabenderhöhe it joined a line running in north-south direction that secured the border with the Homburg rule .

Landwehr Ruppichteroth-Drabenderhöhe

Border between the Duchy of Berg and the Lordship of Homburg in 1765

This map, the upper edge of which points to the east, was created due to border disputes between the two territories, the scale differs considerably. The place Ruppichteroth is shown as a larger place with the two churches.

“The current mayor's office Much is touched by the procession of a large Landwehr (border guard), which in many places bears the name Landhecke (in the old days Landhegge). It extends from the Sieg near Eitorf via Ruppichteroth , Hotgerath, past Bölkum to the Bröl near Röttgen. Beyond the Bröl it runs past Alefeld, Niederdreisbach, Oberdreisbach, following the slopes of the Haubach valley soon to the right and then to the left via Bonrath to Drabenderhöhe . This Landwehr can be traced beyond this place to the Agger and even further. The wall and ditch can still be seen in many places. "

- From "The old parish" Much Prof. K. Oberdörfer, Rheinland-Verlag, 1923

See also

swell

  1. ↑ a b Erich Schultze-Gebhardt: Settlement and Industry between Ruhr and Wupper. Self-published by the Heimat- und Geschichtsverein Sprockhövel, 1980, pp. 111–118.
  2. ^ A b Otto Bürger: The Hardenberger Landwehr from the Velau in Velbert to Horath. In: Historical contributions of the Bergisches Geschichtsverein eV, Abb. Velbert - Hardenberg, Issue 9, 1988.
  3. ↑ Justus Bockemühl, Peter Arnold Heuser: Nobility tradition and rule structures. Thoughts on the history of the Bergisches Land in the 11th century. 1987, ISBN 3-924224-07-2 .
  4. ↑ a b Gerd Helbeck: The Bergische Landwehr between Wupper, Ennepe and Bever. In: Romerike Berge. Solingen 2003, issue 3, p. 2 ff.
  5. ↑ a b c Martin Kollmann: Landwehren. In: Romerike Berge. Solingen 2007, issue 1, pp. 27-41.
  6. ^ A b Wilhelm Engels: The Barmer Landwehr. In: Journal of the Bergisches Geschichtsverein . Volume 63, year 1935, pp. 78–90, Martini & Grüttefien Verlag, Elberfeld
  7. ↑ a b c d Wilhelm Engels: The Landwehr in the outskirts of the Duchy of Berg. In: Journal of the Bergisches Geschichtsverein. Volume 66, year 1938, pp. 67-278, Martini & Grüttefien Verlag, Elberfeld
  8. ↑ Maximillian Dornseif: Bergische Landwehr between Kirschsiepen and brand. Archived from the original on February 23, 2013 ; accessed on January 20, 2016 .

Web links

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