Hut forest
The Hüttenwald is a mixed forest area of around 300 hectares northeast of Dillingen in the Saarlouis district in Saarland . The forest owes its name to the Dillinger Hütte and is in their possession.
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geography
The forest rises about 50 m above the level of the city. It is bounded in the south by Dillingen, in the west by the B51 and in the east by Diefflen. The Jewish cemetery is on the eastern edge . The Hüttenwaldbach feeds the Haienbach, which flows in a south-westerly direction into the Saar Valley.
geology
The crumbly middle red sandstone is covered by the harder carbonate or clay-like upper red sandstone . On top of this are layers of shell limestone, marl with anhydrite and gypsum. The terraced deposits of gravel and younger floodplain clay caused by rivers occur at different heights.
history
The western foothills of the ridge covered by the forest served as a gallows hill . After central jurisdiction was taken over by the state organs at the end of the 18th century, Pastor Philipp Schmitt erected a stone crucifix in 1837 in place of the last gallows erected by Madame Lasalle in 1750 , which from then on was the target of the Corpus Christi procession . So the field name changed from Galgenberg to Heiligenberg. The cross had to give way to the memorial erected in 1934, was moved 60 meters in an easterly direction and was thus able to withstand the artillery fire at the end of the Second World War unscathed, to which the memorial fell victim. On May 20, 1844, the bricklayer Johann Reinert , who was employed in the construction of St. Johann , was struck by lightning at the edge of the forest. Pastor Schmitt erected a memorial stone at this point and carved the name and occupation of the deceased himself, a prayer and his trowel, hammer and angle into the sides. During the Second World War, the stone was torn from the ground by artillery fire, but was later used again in the same place. As a result of weathering and the effects of the war, the inscriptions can no longer be recognized. Inspired by the reason for its construction, the stone is called "dimmer stone", the regional name for thunderbolt. Dimmerstein then also became a field name.
On June 12, 1934, officials of the SWV (Saarland Economic Association), KPD and SPD planned to demolish the predecessor building, which is similar to today's memorial, before its inauguration. The aim of the action was to create unrest in order to provoke the invasion of French troops and thus prevent the Saar area from being reintegrated into Germany. On the night of December 8th to 9th, 1944, an American battalion coming from Itzbach crossed the Saar and then the railroad tracks. At dawn, supported by two other battalions, an attack took place 300 meters north of Dillingen. The aim was to take the southwestern part of the hut forest. The German bunkers , one of which is located a few meters from the memorial, prevented rapid progress. At dusk, however, the American infantry reached an area 60 meters from the Haienbach. The deceased forced laborers were buried in the Jewish cemetery on the eastern edge of the forest . After the fierce fighting in December 1944, the heavy mining of the forest by tank, vehicle and personal mines posed a great danger. After the mine clearance, the first driven hunt took place in 1948. The hunting party consisted of directors, shareholders and officers from the French occupiers. The rebuilt memorial was inaugurated in 1957 by Pastor Matthias Weiland. In the subsequent speech of the Minister of Education spoke Franz-Josef Röder and attack aircraft Colonel Rudel . Immediately on the southern edge of the forest, the young men of the Schoenstatt Movement after the war erected the “little picture”, a Lady Chapel, on which many votive tablets have now been attached. On July 28, 2008, a 32-year-old homeless man killed another 24-year-old homeless person with 46 stab wounds during a binge drinking in the memorial. In 2010 the perpetrator was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
use
The softer sandstones were quarried in sand pits, while the harder sandstone was used to extract rubble stones. The terraced clay was processed in brickworks. The gravel was also used. The charcoal obtained in the forest was used in the nearby iron and steel works until coal mining began . Occasionally the wood is still used when starting up the blast furnaces at Dillinger Hütte. Today the forest serves as a local recreation area; a 3.7 km long circular route is suitable for wheelchair users.
Footnotes
- ^ A b Aloys Lehnert: History of the city of Dillingen / Saar . Dillingen 1968, p. 25 .
- ↑ Schmitt Philipp. ( Memento from December 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on: saarland-biografien.de
- ^ Aloys Lehnert: History of the city of Dillingen / Saar . Dillingen 1968, p. 620 .
- ^ Aloys Lehnert: History of the city of Dillingen / Saar . Dillingen 1968, p. 263 .
- ↑ Johannes Peter: On the history of the Dillinger workers' movement 1918-1935 . Dillingen / Saar 2006, ISBN 3-938190-19-1 , p. 120 .
- ^ Hugh Marshall Cole: The Lorraine Campaign . United States Government Printing Office , 1950 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- ^ Aloys Lehnert: History of the city of Dillingen / Saar . Dillingen 1968, p. 632 .
- ↑ Saarbrücker Zeitung from August 4, 2009.
- ^ Saarbrücker Zeitung of February 5, 2010.
- ↑ Wheelchair path in the hut forest. at barrierefreies-wandern.de
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 22 ′ 10.1 ″ N , 6 ° 44 ′ 8 ″ E