Iron Hand (Northwestern Switzerland)

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Aerial photo to the south: the wooded Eiserne Hand mountain ridge, in front of the satellite settlement of Salzert

The Iron Hand is about 40  hectares in size, almost 1.7 kilometers long and a maximum of 300 meters wide, which protrudes towards Germany, but belongs to Switzerland . The tip of the area is a wooded mountain ridge in the north-western Swiss municipality of Riehen in the northeast of the canton of Basel-Stadt . It forms part of the border between Switzerland and Germany . This borderline, marked by historical boundary stones , has remained unchanged for almost 500 years, making it one of the oldest in Central Europe. The green borderat the Iron Hand was the scene of many refugee and smuggling incidents in the past .

description

Location and geography

Iron Hand environment map

The Iron Hand area belongs to the Swiss municipality of Riehen and separates the Stetten district , which belongs to Lörrach, from the municipality of Inzlingen , which forms an agreed administrative community with the city of Lörrach . The satellite settlement of Salzert is located around 300 meters north of the Iron Hand . The length of the associated border section is 3.46 kilometers.

In terms of nature , the Iron Hand is part of the Dinkelberg . Geologically , the ridge is practically completely made of Upper Muschelkalk , consisting of stratified limestone and dolomite . Only towards the southwest to a significantly lesser extent towards Maienbühl does it consist of middle shell limestone , which is composed of marl with gypsum as well as anhydrite and dolomite banks.

The Iron Hand is an elongated, almost completely wooded hill formation ( Herrenwald ) with a maximum height of 480  m above sea level. M. It is about 200 meters higher than the Wiesental to the west. In the south drains on the German side of the Aubach , which was placed under nature protection as a natural area with the Autal nature reserve of the same name . Adjacent to the southeast is the Buttenberghalde, which is about the same height as the Iron Hand . The Iron Hand itself, together with the Maienbühl and the Rotengraben, was declared a class 2 (L02) of 5 landscape protection zone. On the southern edge, on Maienbühlweg, the only place to live is a farmhouse.

The Iron Hand forest consists of mixed forest , mainly fir trees , with beech and oak trees on the outer edge . The northeastern tip of the piece of land as well as an eastern edge piece have the status of "Priority nature conservation", as they belong to the foothills of the Buttenberghalde nature reserve. The rest of the area is not given special priority according to the forest development plan of the canton of Basel-Stadt.

Road network

The Iron Hand and its surroundings are accessible with a dense network of trails, including various hiking trails . From Stetten, the paved Maienbühlweg (on the Swiss side: Maienbühlsträsschen) leads uphill directly into the Swiss border area to Maienbühlhof. There a board provides information about the paths and distinctive points of the Iron Hand. The ravine branches off from the farm in a south-westerly direction to Riehen. All other paths are forest or forest paths.

Signposts for the hiking trails in the northern area of ​​the Iron Hand

To the northeast, the Maienbühlweg continues as a forest path, partly following exactly the border line, to the north through the Herrenwald towards Salzert. To the south of Maienbühlhof, Wolfenfroweg, which runs parallel to Maienbühlweg and initially still follows the border line, also leads northwards through the area. In the middle part of the Iron Hand, the Wolfenfroweg leaves the border and leads through the center of the area until it meets the Maienbühlweg, which also branches off in the middle. This in turn runs to the eastern edge of the Iron Hand and leads in the last quarter as "In der Eisernen Hand" to a bordered but not guarded border crossing . In the upper («In der Muelte») and in the lower quarter («Auf der Burg») of the Iron Hand, two shorter paths run across the area.

The 4.67 km long regional hiking trail with a blue diamond leads completely around the Iron Hand and remains relatively flat between 400 and 450 meters above sea level. It runs in the municipal area of ​​Riehen, Inzlingen and Lörrach.

Landmarks

Iron Hand Landmarks

There are 76 boundary stones along the Riehens border . 43 of them mark the course of the state border on the Iron Hand. They are engraved and numbered from 49a to 74b in clockwise order. Stones that were added afterwards were given intermediate numbers with identification by letters.

The boundary stones are originally made of sandstone and limestone , some of the destroyed boundary stones were repositioned from granite .

Almost all boundary stones have two mostly colored coats of arms or national emblems , each of which is oriented towards the corresponding side of the country, some instead of its abbreviations. In the middle of the top there is usually a notch in the stone (border groove), which marks the borderline. Some stones have a metal plaque with a border point on the top .

Iron Hand - Boundary Stone 65 V1.jpg
Iron hand - boundary stone 65 V3.jpg
Iron hand - boundary stone 65 V2.jpg


Border stone 65 (City of Basel / Grand Duchy of Baden) from 1840 marks the southern border of the Herrenwald, in the top view (center) you can see the border groove and point

The historical coats of arms, national emblems and letter abbreviations document which reigns over time exercised sovereignty over the Iron Hand or the areas adjacent to it.

These were or are for the territory of the Iron Hand

  • the prince-bishopric of Basel (letter abbreviation: B): The coat of arms shows the prince-bishop's crook on a white field. The boundary stone number 61, also known as the Bischofsstein, dates back to 1491 and is therefore the oldest on the Iron Hand border and the second oldest on the 18-kilometer-long Riehen border.
  • the city of Basel (B): The coat of arms shows a black Basel staff framed in silver and can be found on the boundary stones 49a, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 58, 59, 62, 63, 65, 67, 68, 69 , 70, 71, 72, 73 and 74.

and for the outside bordering areas

Naming

Sign "Iron Hand Path"

Several possible interpretations are given in the literature for the remarkable field name " Iron Hand ", some of which cannot be scientifically maintained. What is certain is that the name was intended as a general symbol of rule . Such signs generally represented the sovereign's glove and served as signposts - such a bronze hand weighing 14 kilograms and 60 centimeters long can be seen in the New Museum in Biel, for example. Mostly they were also put on at the market of the respective city. It can no longer be determined whether the government in this case is a bishop or a margrave . The name Eiserne Hand was first recorded in 1774, making it a relatively young name. Presumably it only established itself after the border was occupied by soldiers and replaced the name Herrenwald.

The one kilometer long Eiserne-Hand-Weg (Eiserne-Hand-Weg) path, which lies completely in the Herrenwald and runs north from Waidhof to Salzert and tangentially follows the northern tip of the border section for about 35 meters, is named after the region's tip. Another path called "In der Eisernen Hand" branches off from Wolfenfroweg and follows the southern borderline for over two kilometers. At the top it meets the Iron Hand Path.

history

Antiquity to early modern times

Excavations in 1966/67 revealed that a Roman-era economic building had stood on the Iron Hand . The rectangular structure of rubble consisted of only clay as binder erected wall quartered and had a surface area of 12.8 × 11.2 meters on. The walls were around 70 centimeters thick and have been preserved in the foundation zone. From the investigations it was concluded that the masonry originally had a height of 1.5 to 1.7 meters. Its ground plan had an almost exact east-west orientation. The entrance to the house faced south. The few finds that have been made are mainly ceramic shards .

The roughly 18-kilometer-long border of the municipality of Riehen is one of the oldest in Europe. Along the old customs officers' path, boundary stones from five centuries testify to the border situation. On the German side, the border stones show the yellow-red coat of arms (partly with a crown ) of the Grand Duchy of Baden . Older stones show the black and yellow coat of arms with three rings of Stetten , which belongs to Upper Austria, and that of the Inzling local lords of Reichenstein. On the Swiss side the boundary stones carry almost exclusively the Baselstab . The oldest boundary stone from the 15th century recalls the time when Riehen did not yet belong to the city of Basel . With the independence of Switzerland, confirmed in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 , the border became an external border of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation .

Border disputes over the Iron Hand between Stetten and Riehen are known from 1510. These were held between the two communities until 1871.

The so-called “Siebenbannstein” is located around two kilometers northeast of the eastern tip of the Iron Hand. It marks the point where the municipal boundaries of seven former municipalities met: Lörrach, Brombach, Stetten, Ottwangen , Adelhausen , Hagenbach and Inzlingen. The point of the Siebenbannstein lies at 451  m above sea level. M. and is marked with a wooden plaque in the forest.

Baden Revolution until the 1920s

Already during the Baden Revolution of 1848/1849, many insurgents managed to escape to Switzerland through the difficult to control piece of land at the Iron Hand. The neutrality of Switzerland was injured in several wars on Maienbühl. Attempts have even been made to extraterritorialize the top of the area by shifting the boundary line . During the First World War, the Swiss army deliberately left the forest to the German military. In 1919 consideration was given to swapping land with the state of Baden for a more practical border line .

During the global economic crisis at the end of the 1920s, the complicated borderline meant that an intensive smuggling of Swiss goods to Lörrach was able to establish itself.

During the Second World War

Ingrown border shield on the Iron Hand

During the Second World War , the entire strip of land enclosed by the German Reich was declared a restricted area in order to prevent the flow of refugees as part of the “ Final Solution ”. On August 18, 1942, the Nazi regime had a barbed wire barricade built 13 kilometers long, eight meters wide and three meters high , which was triangular in cross-section and was held in place by two 1.5 meter high stakes and a 3 meter high stake. This barrier, which was already completed in September, left a gap open at the edge of the forest near Maienbühlhof, which basically represented an escape route, albeit a dangerous one.

Switzerland had rejected the Germans' request in February 1943 and, until the end of the war, successfully resisted having their territory set up a security. For the National Socialists, however, it was too time-consuming to build a steel wire fence in the impassable area around the Iron Hand, so that the section was monitored by customs officers and watchdogs during this time. From time to time every day, Jewish refugees, deserters and Polish persecuted people tried to escape to Switzerland at this point . The old customs officer path has largely been preserved to this day. It was not until the end of the war, in January 1945, that Swiss customs closed the gap between boundary stones 50 and 74 in order to put a stop to a feared large influx of refugees after the collapse of the German Reich.

After 1945

Even after the war, the Iron Hand was known for illegally crossing borders. In the 1970s, the German Federal Border Guard was looking for the RAF terrorist Christian Klar , who was well versed in this border area.

On February 22, 2011, the memorial for refugees who fled via the Iron Hand during the Second World War was opened in Riehen directly on the railway line .

In May 2016, 250 people took part on Holocaust Remembrance Day as part of the March of Life movement , who silently migrated from Riehen to the Iron Hand. The commemorative event was intended to commemorate the escape victims during the Second World War.

reception

The adventurous borderline of the Landzipfel, which is often referred to as the finger protruding towards Germany, as well as the historical circumstances of refugee and smuggling stories at the Iron Hand have inspired many authors to use them in their novels and stories. The author Armin Zwerger, who lives in Inzlingen, used the Iron Hand as the main setting for his crime novel of the same name. The iron hand also plays a role as the setting in Hunkeler's Secret , the ninth volume of the Kommissär-Hunkeler crime series by Hansjörg Schneider . His story was filmed in a four-part television series with Ueli Jäggi in 2016.

In 2019, the city of Lörrach offered a specific guided tour on the “Border History of the Iron Hand” as part of its city ​​tour program . The Riehener Theater ex / ex, which presents socio-political issues in special locations, has been staging the play "Refugees came almost every day" in the authentic setting of the Iron Hand every season since 2016.

Movies

  • Escape routes - when Jewish refugees wanted to go to Switzerland. , Episode 28 of the SWR series History in the Southwest , first broadcast on December 7, 2014. ( table of contents )

literature

History and geography

  • Ralph Raymond Braun: Southern Black Forest travel guide with Freiburg, Basel and Markgräflerland , Michael Müller Verlag, 2017, ISBN 978-3-95654-446-0 , pp. 268, 270.
  • Lukrezia Seiler , Jean-Claude Wacker: Refugees came almost every day. Riehen and Bettingen - two border villages 1933 to 1948. , Christoph Merian Verlag, Basel 2013, ISBN 978-3-85616-580-2 , pp. 163-185.
  • Guido Helmig: Gallo-Roman temples in Riehen. in: Jahrbuch z'Rieche 2009 , Reinhardt Verlag, Basel 2009, ISBN 978-3-85895-022-2 , p. 36 ff. ( online )
  • Lucretia Seiler: The «Iron Hand» . In: Heiko Haumann et al. (Ed.): Places of Remembrance: People and scenes in the border region of Basel 1933–1945 . Christoph Merian Verlag, Basel 2008, ISBN 978-3-85616-364-8 , pp. 160-166.
  • Susanne Asche , Ernst Otto Bräunche (ed.): The road of democracy . Info Verlag, Karlsruhe 2007, ISBN 978-3-88190-483-4 , pp. 170-173.
  • Markus Moehring, Martin Zückert (eds.): Halt state border, smuggling and border development in the triangle , Verlag Waldemar Lutz, Lörrach 2000, ISBN 3-922107-51-6 .
  • Michael Raith : Community customer Riehen . Riehen Verlag, Riehen 1988, pp. 44-49.
  • Niggi Basler: On Smugglers' Paths to the Iron Hand , in: Jahrbuch z'Rieche 1969 ( online )
  • August Heitz: Boundaries and boundary signs of the cantons Baselstadt and Baselland. Sources and research on the history and regional studies of the canton of Baselland. Cantonal printed matter and material center, Liestal 1964.

Fiction

Web links

Commons : Iron Hand  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c The road of democracy . P. 172.
  2. ↑ Stefan Suter: As if there were no limits , in: Jahrbuch z'Rieche 1985, ISBN 978-3-85895-853-2 . ( online )
  3. ^ R. Hüttner: Geological map of the district of Lörrach 1: 50,000. Stuttgart 1984.
  4. ^ Autal (nature reserve), Riehen, Switzerland in gruenguertel.ch ; last accessed on May 30, 2019.
  5. ↑ Cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Land: Landscape quality contributions in addition to the cantonal networking concept of Basel-Landschaft, with an extension to the agricultural area of ​​the canton of Basel-Stadt. Project report. , December 17, 2015, last accessed on May 30, 2019
  6. ↑ Basel-Stadt forest development plan : Forest functions map (as of September 30, 2019) (PDF), accessed on December 21, 2020
  7. ↑ Topographic district map of Baden-Württemberg, district of Lörrach , 1: 50,000, 2011, ISBN 978-3-89021-720-8 .
  8. ^ August Heitz: Boundaries and boundary signs of the cantons of Baselstadt and Baselland. Pp. 211-212.
  9. ↑ Badische Zeitung : Captured by the Iron Hand , article from September 27, 2016, last accessed on March 26, 2019
  10. ^ Heitz: Boundaries and boundary signs of the cantons Baselstadt and Baselland. P. 33.
  11. ^ Heitz: Boundaries and boundary signs of the cantons Baselstadt and Baselland. P. 211.
  12. ^ Raith: Community customer Riehen. Pp. 45-46.
  13. ^ Heitz: Boundaries and boundary signs of the cantons Baselstadt and Baselland. P. 203.
  14. ↑ Michael Raith: Along the border, in: Jahrbuch z'Rieche 2005, ISBN 978-3-85895-017-8 ( online )
  15. ↑ Guido Helmig: Gallorömische Tempel in Riehen , in: Jahrbuch z'Rieche 2009, accessed on March 25, 2019
  16. ↑ Lucretia Seiler: The «Iron Hand» . P. 160.
  17. ↑ a b c Raith: Community customer Riehen . P. 46 ( online ; PDF).
  18. ↑ The road of democracy . P. 170.
  19. ↑ Robert Neissen: Loerrach and Nazism - Between fanaticism and distance . Ed. Stadt Lörrach, City Archives, doRi Verlag, Bötzingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-9814362-1-1 , p. 83.
  20. ↑ riehen.ch: Riehen in WW2. Last accessed on March 19, 2019.
  21. ↑ Badische Zeitung: A monster that should turn Germany into a prison. , Article from April 23, 2014, page 25, last accessed on March 26, 2019
  22. ↑ Lucretia Seiler: The «Iron Hand» . P. 164.
  23. ↑ Seiler, Wacker: Refugees came almost every day. , P. 163.
  24. ↑ The road of democracy . P. 171.
  25. ^ Website of the Memorial for Refugees
  26. ^ Riehener Zeitung: Unleash new life. , Page 11, article of May 13, 2016
  27. ↑ Ursula Krause-Schmitt: Local history guide to the sites of resistance and persecution 1933–1945. Baden-Württemberg II: Freiburg and Tübingen administrative districts. VAS publishing house for academic writings, Frankfurt a. M. 1997, ISBN 3-88864-223-X , p. 75.
  28. ↑ Die Oberbadische : A thriller from the border region . Article from October 16, 2016, last accessed on March 20, 2019.
  29. ↑ srf.ch: "Hunkeler's Secret" by Hansjörg Schneider . Article from March 28, 2016, last accessed on March 20, 2019.
  30. ↑ loerrach.de: Urban explorer . City and adventure tours in Lörrach (PDF), p. 25
  31. Jump up ↑ A stroll through the gloomy old days , article in the Riehener Zeitung from May 27, 2016, last accessed on March 25, 2019

Coordinates: 47 ° 35 '48 "  N , 7 ° 40' 59"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred eighteen thousand three hundred ninety-three  /  271818

This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on December 30, 2020 in this version .