Kohnstein

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Kohnstein
The Kohnstein from the direction of Niedersachswerfen (1945)

The Kohnstein from the direction of Niedersachswerfen (1945)

height 334.9  m above sea level NHN
location near Nordhausen ; Nordhausen district , Thuringia ( Germany )
Mountains resin
Coordinates 51 ° 32 '26 "  N , 10 ° 44' 6"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 32 '26 "  N , 10 ° 44' 6"  E
Kohnstein (Thuringia)
Kohnstein

The Kohnstein is 334.9  m above sea level. NHN high mountain in the sulphate karst of the southern Harz foreland near Nordhausen in the Nordhausen district in Thuringia .

In an extensive mountain was created by the rock mining tunnel system , which during the Second World War by prisoners of the nearby Mittelbau-Dora to the production site Mittelwerk was rebuilt on arms and greatly expanded.

geography

location

The Kohnstein is located in the Southern Harz in the Southern Harz Nature Park . Its predominant part with the mountain top belongs to the district of Salza (city of Nordhausen ), a small part in the northeast to Niedersachswerfen , a district of the Harztor municipality to the northeast of the mountain , and a piece in the northwest to the town of Ellrich with the district of Woffleben northwest of the mountain. The Kohnstein is part of the Harz - Braunschweiger Land - Ostfalen Geopark . The Zorge , which takes in the Bere here, flows northeast to east past the mountain . The Hirschenteich , an artificially dammed pond, lies at the foot of the Kohnstein massif .

Natural allocation

The Kohnstein lies in the natural spatial main unit group Thuringian Basin (with edge plates) (No. 48) on the border of the sub-units Liebenroder Hügelland (484.0) in the south, which belongs to the main unit North Thuringian Hügelland (484), and Walkenrieder Zechsteinhügelland (485.0) in the north, which belongs to the main unit of the southern Harz Zechstein belt (485). The landscape falls to the north into the western tip of the Beretal (485.31) natural area, which belongs to the valley floor subunit of the southern Harz rivers (485.3) .

geology

Anhydrite scree at the foot of the Kohnstein

The up to 200 meters thick rock deposits of the Kohnstein, consisting of gypsum , anhydrite , alabaster and Marienglas , have been mined since the Middle Ages and processed in factories from 1860 onwards. The rock was formed in the Permian 299 to 251 million years ago in what geologists call the Werra sequence, which is divided into the Upper and Lower Werra anhydrite and the Werra salt. This rock was mined in this mountain and mainly used economically for mortar and building blocks. At present it is mainly used for screed and plasterboard production.

There are well-known and typical karst phenomena such as sinkholes , caves, ponors , springs and various rock formations that can be hiked in one go.

history

People have settled in the valley of the Zorge since the Neolithic and used the Kohnstein with its steep slopes as a naturally protected place. Woolly rhinoceros and mammoth bones were also found on the Kohnstein .

In the Hallstatt period , construction of a hill fort began on the plateau , but the facility was destroyed by fire before it was completed. In the meantime, the open-cast mine has completely removed the area of ​​the former Wallburg.

At the beginning of the 14th century the mountain appears in the sources as "Kansteyn". From 1366 the Counts of Hohnstein had the Schnabelsburg built on the Kohnstein .

Anhydrite breakdown on the Kohnstein

From 1917, the Badische Anilin- & Soda-Fabrik (BASF) had sulphate rock mined in the Kohnstein by the ammonia plant in Merseburg. As the mainly about day made degradation of these rocks mid-1930s was no longer economically viable, the promotion of the rock has been driven underground site. The resulting tunnel system in Kohnstein should the German Reich in the era of National Socialism serve as an underground fuel depot. Work on the fuel depot began in July 1936 and continued until the summer of 1943.

After the bombing of the Peenemünde Army Research Center in August 1943, the decision was made to move production of the V2 rocket and the V1 flight bomb from Peenemünde underground . The existing tunnel system in Kohnstein was selected as the future location, which was then converted and considerably expanded by prisoners from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp located nearby . In the period from January 1944 to March 1945, the Mittelwerk mainly produced V1 and V2 retaliatory weapons missiles. After the end of the Second World War and the liberation of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, the Kohnstein area was initially occupied by American troops and, on July 1, 1945, was taken over by the Soviet military administration , which destroyed the access to the tunnel in the summer of 1947. The tunnel system was closed to visitors until German reunification .

During the GDR , the Leunawerke am Kohnstein mined around 2 million tons of anhydrite annually in open-cast mining, which corresponded to around 45 percent of the world anhydrite production at that time. Most of the anhydrite extracted was used for the chemical industry (e.g. sulfuric acid and cement production) and also for the manufacture of building materials (e.g. anhydrite binders or flowing anhydrite screed).

Via the Treuhandanstalt , the Kohnstein came into the possession of the private Bavarian mining company Wildgruber (WICO) on September 30, 1992, which had the anhydrite deposits exploited by FBM Baustoffwerk Wildgruber GmbH & Co Anhydritwerke KG , based in Lower Saxony . In the process, Wildgruber only acquired the mountain, but not the tunnel system and the remains of the Mittelwerk that remained in it, which in the following years repeatedly led to conflicts between the company and the preservationists . In December 2002 Wildgruber had to close the gypsum works on the Kohnstein. In February 2004, the Knauf Gips company took over WICO and with it 72% of the shares in the Kohnstein quarry.

Tourism and hiking

Today's access to the tunnel system in the Kohnstein

The Kaiserweg (old Heerstraße) led along the Kohnstein , on which you can now hike as well as the karst hiking trail that passes by. For a long time there was a popular excursion restaurant near the Schnabelsburg . From 1934 there was an open-air stage at the Maienkopf with 500 seats.

From the end of 1991, as part of the redesign of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp memorial, a new access tunnel to the tunnel system in Kohnstein was created. Since 1995, guided tours through a small part of the tunnel system have been possible by employees of the memorial.

The deer pond south of the Kohnstein

Around 600 m northwest of the concentration camp memorial and around 550 m east of the mountain summit, several forest and forest paths meet on Komödienplatz ( ⊙ ; approx.  300  m above sea  level ). Here, the Realgymnasium of Nordhäuser Wilhelm-von-Humboldt-Gymnasium, founded in 1835, celebrated May festivals and also performed Latin comedies. Until 2016, Komödienplatz was included as No. 99 in the system of stamping points of the Harz hiking nobility.

literature

  • Tim Schäfer: Photos, facts, fanaticism: the tunnels of the SS Mittelwerk in Kohnstein b. Nordhausen; from the WiFo order of the RKM Reich Ministry of War & Camp for Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, via SS Brigadier General Dr.-Ing. Hans Kammler, Arms Relocation and to the inmate hell of the Mittelbau-Dora labor camp and concentration camp in Nazi Germany (1918–1945) . Iffland, Nordhausen -Salza 2005, ISBN 978-3-939357-00-1 .
  • Udo Breger: The rocket mountain. Kohnstein, Dora and the V2 . Peter Engstler, Ostheim / Rhön 1992, ISBN 978-3-9801770-7-8 .
  • Hilmar Römer: Little Kohnstein Primer . reproFactory, Nordhausen 2010.

Web links

Commons : Kohnstein  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Map services of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation ( information )
  2. ^ Landkreis Nordhausen , near the Free State of Thuringia: Thuringian State Institute for Environment and Geology
  3. ↑ Jürgen Spönemann: Geographical Land Survey: The natural spatial units on sheet 100 Halberstadt. Federal Institute for Regional Studies, Bad Godesberg 1970. →  Online map (PDF; 4.7 MB)
  4. ↑ The karst landscape of the Nordhausen district , on karstwanderweg.de, accessed on December 22, 2009
  5. ↑ Werra episode ( memento from September 4, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), in: Rocks (publication by the Geology Department at Fu-Berlin), December 22, 2009
  6. ↑ Hilmar Römer: soil monuments in and Lower Saxony . In: Meyenburg-Museum (Hrsg.): Contributions to local history from the city and district of Nordhausen . Issue 12. Nordhausen 1987, p. 32 .
  7. ↑ Michael Köhler: Thuringian castles and fortified prehistoric and early historical living spaces . Jenzig-Verlag, Jena 2001, ISBN 3-910141-43-9 , p. 98, 161 .
  8. ^ Wilhelm Vahlbruch: Heimatbüchlein der Grafschaft Hohnstein in the district of Ilfeld (southern Harz) . Crimderode 1927. (Online)
  9. ↑ Jens-Christian Wagner : Production of death: Das KZ Mittelbau-Dora , Göttingen 2001, p. 146ff.
  10. ^ Jens-Christian Wagner: Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp 1943–1945 , volume accompanying the permanent exhibition at the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial, Göttingen 2007, p. 32f.
  11. ^ Jens-Christian Wagner: Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp 1943–1945 , volume accompanying the permanent exhibition in the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial, Göttingen 2007, pp. 45ff.
  12. ^ Jens-Christian Wagner: Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp 1943–1945 , volume accompanying the permanent exhibition at the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial, Göttingen 2007, p. 152f.
  13. ↑ Sebastian Christ: Traces of History - Remains of a Murder Regime , in: Der Spiegel Special, Issue 3/2005 of May 9, 2005
  14. ↑ F.Kaminski, G.Lungwitz: Possible uses of anhydrite in construction, study; Building Academy of the GDR, Institute for Building Materials; Berlin 1984
  15. ↑ Current: Gipsmarkt-Nachrichten , on naturschatz.org
  16. ^ Jens-Christian Wagner: Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp 1943–1945 , volume accompanying the permanent exhibition at the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial, Göttingen 2007, p. 3180
  17. ↑ Photo of an information board on Komödienplatz , on jensunterwegs.de
  18. ↑ Harzer Wandernadel : Changed stamp locations since April 16 , 2016 , on harzer-wandernadel.de;
    see also the former stamp office 99 - Komödienplatz ( memento from February 6, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), from harzer-wandernadel.de