Bone breaker curve
The bone breaker curve is a road curve along the Brockenstrasse on the Brocken in the Harz Mountains in Saxony-Anhalt .
location
It is located about 500 meters south of the Brocken summit as the crow flies and belongs to the district of Schierke , a district of the city of Wernigerode . In the area of the curve, Brockenstrasse experiences a significant change of direction of almost 120 °, similar to a hairpin . Within the bend of the curve there is a refuge with various information boards. The refuge is the last refuge before the summit on the ascent to the Brocken. The refuge also serves as the starting or end point for trips with horse-drawn vehicles to and from Schierke.
Naming and history
The unusual name of the curve is shown both in the maps of the Brocken region and on the official hiking maps set up in the area. The bone breaker curve is the only named curve on the Brockenstrasse leading from Schierke to Brocken.
The name did not result from the dangerousness of the sharp bend itself, although this would be particularly obvious for tobogganers using the Brockenstrasse, but goes back to the painter Adolf Rettelbusch, who became known as a Brocken painter . After Rettelbusch retired in 1924, he increasingly visited the Harz Mountains and in particular the Brocken. Here he discovered a path to the Brocken summit, which started from the curve of Brockenstrasse and reached the summit off the road. The path led through impassable terrain, was very steep and uneven and was therefore called a bone breaker by Rettelbusch . As the starting point for the bone breaker, the curve was given the name bone breaker curve. The bone breaker itself is no longer shown as a path today.
literature
- Eberhard Löblich, On the way to the summit, stories along the Brocken Paths , Mitteldeutscher Verlag Halle (Saale) 2001, ISBN 3-89812-055-4 , page 16.
Coordinates: 51 ° 47 '40.2 " N , 10 ° 37' 2.7" E