Grenzhammer

Grenzhammer City of Ilmenau Coordinates: 50 ° 40 ′ 44 ″  N , 10 ° 56 ′ 25 ″  E
Height :	474 m
Postal code :	98693
Area code :	03677
Former Spatpochwerk

Former train station

The Grenzhammer is not an official part of the city of Ilmenau in the Ilm district (Thuringia). It was never an independent municipality, but belonged to Unterpörlitz in the past .

The place Grenzhammer got its name because of its location on the state border between the Duchy of Saxony-Weimar and the Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen . The border was formed by the Schorte , a river that flows into the Ilm here . The Grenzhammer was founded around the 15th to 16th centuries. The core was formed by a stamping mill in which spar from the upper Schortetal was processed. This material was important for the Ilmenau glass industry . In order to transport the Spats to the “Volle Rose” mine about three kilometers away, a wagon train was laid in the Schortetal . Today, their tracks are only visible in the upper section.

The orientalist Wilhelm Friedrich Hezel lived at Grenzhammer between 1780 and 1786 . He was then appointed professor at the Universities of Giessen and Dorpat .

In 1793, the French industrialist François Ignace de Wendel wanted to build a steelworks for cast iron production at Grenzhammer with the help of Mining Minister Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . However, these plans were discarded due to the expected adverse conditions for iron production (including difficult transport and small quantities of raw materials in the area). Ultimately, Wendel committed suicide after a nervous breakdown.

"Village pub" Fridolin

The houses of the "hammer people", as they are called in Ilmenau church chronicles, were located on the northern slope of the Ilm valley, about 20 meters above the valley floor, in order to avoid destruction by floods. To operate a mill, a mill ditch was also created, which branched off from the Ilm at the “Grenzhammerwehr”, the sixth and last downstream Ilm weir, and was led back into the river below the “Fridolin” restaurant. The trench still has this course today and is still operational. The original village pub "Fridolin" is now a restaurant on the Ilm Valley cycle path and is also popular with students and employees of the nearby Ilmenau University of Technology .

In the village there was a stop on the Ilmenau-Großbreitenbacher railway since 1881 . In 1900 a glassworks was built at Grenzhammer . It was Ilmenau's fifth glassworks and belonged to Otto Lange. That is why it was named Langshütte , after which a street, the Langshüttenweg , is named on the former factory premises today. In 1938 the glassworks had around 250 employees. It was closed in 1968 and then demolished.

Elm at the Grenzhammer

Opposite the stop was the probably largest elm tree in Thuringia, which was much older than 200 years, possibly even existing in 1698. Their height was about 30 m, their trunk circumference was over 6 m. It was still quite vital and so far not attacked by the elm splint beetle, although it was secured with ropes and also had a cavity. On the evening of July 22, 2015, the mountain elm, which has been protected as a natural monument since 1956, fell victim to a thunderstorm with heavy rain.

Energy saving houses

During the first Thuringian “municipal reform” in 1922/1923, Grenzhammer, with its 80 inhabitants at the time, was incorporated into Ilmenau along with Neuhaus, which is 500 meters northwest . Today the municipal boundary between Ilmenau and Langewiesen runs immediately east of the Grenzhammer houses. In 1998 the railway line was shut down, so that today the connection to the local public transport takes place exclusively via the bus stop of the same name. Numerous new single-family houses have been built on Grenzhammer since around 2000. In addition, a private student dormitory was built , which was built from wood in a lightweight construction, which gained local fame.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kratzsch, p. 239

Web links

Commons : Grenzhammer (Ilmenau)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files