Moose forest
The elk forest was a nature reserve in East Prussia .
history
On September 12, 1937, a forest area of 46,550 hectares east and south-east of the Curonian Lagoon was declared a German Elk Forest as a Reich nature reserve. The name was transferred to the new Forest Inspectorate, which was formed on April 1, 1938 from the Ibenhorst and Tawellningken Forestry Offices in the Gumbinnen and Pfeil district, Klein Naujock, Neu-Sternberg, Alt-Sternberg, Gertlauken and Drusken in the Königsberg district. In 1939 the Oberförsterbezirke Rossitten and Schwarzort and in 1941 Leipen and Papuschienen in the district Wehlau were added. The whole Curonian Spit thus belonged to the elk forest.
On July 1, 1941, the elk forest was removed from the provincial forest administration and subordinated to the Reich Forestry and Hunting Office. With 75,000 hectares of state forest property and over 25,000 hectares of leased protection hunts, it was a largely contiguous hunting area of over 100,000 hectares. The fact that the eleven forest offices were merged to form the state hunting area and the uniformly managed forestry department was due to the hunting and keeping of the elk . After the International Hunting Exhibition in Leipzig (1930), the hunted public discovered the beauty and biodiversity of the landscape. It was decided to reserve the so-called tree forest as well as Ibenhorst and Tawellningken for the Reichsjägermeister .
In addition to Hermann Göring , Otto Braun , Wilhelm II , Paul von Hindenburg , Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim , Miklós Horthy , Boris von Bulgaria , Günther von Kluge , Clemens Freiherr von Schorlemer-Lieser and other celebrities hunted in the area of the elk forest .
Parts
The elk forest comprised four very different landscape areas: In the south there were rich ground moraine soils with the clay areas of the "large tree forest". To the north of them, on the east bank of the Curonian Lagoon, lay the western part of the Great Bog Quarry and the alder quarry forest areas of the Memel Delta . The "German desert", the Curonian Spit, lay between the lagoon and the Baltic Sea .
Hans Kramer , the legendary chief forester of the elk forest, wrote about his territory :
“The elk forest united landscapes of extraordinary diversity and contrast. Park-like forests with almost all German tree species, quarry forests, pine stands on dunes, light birch forests and gloomy pure spruce stands, huge unforested raised bogs of melancholy acerbity, the majestic moving dunes of the Curonian Spit and their siblings, the large number of their large and small watercourses, defined by a great reforestation work gentle loveliness and in their wild power when they were in high water, the lagoon and its banks with the often almost impenetrable reeds - truly an area of unique beauty and untamed primeval growth. "
literature
- Hans Kramer : Elk forest. Country, people, hunting. 3. Edition. Jagd- und Kulturverlag, Sulzberg im Allgäu 1990, ISBN 3-925-45600-7 .
Web links
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 55 ° 16 ' N , 20 ° 58' E