Harz region

Geological map of the Harz mining region

The Harz mining region is an industrial cultural landscape that has developed over 1000 years in the northernmost German Central Mountains, which today forms the border region between the three German federal states of Lower Saxony , Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia . It is characterized by a large number of historically largely original technical monuments, as well as numerous individual monuments and aggregates related to the mining industry . The identity and authenticity of the montane cultural landscape of the Harz is comparable to the mining region of the Erzgebirge , which has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage since 2019 .

In 2010, the ore mine Rammelsberg near Goslar, the Upper Harz water management including the Walkenried monastery , the former Samson mine and Goslar's old town were awarded the UNESCO World Heritage title in the Harz mining region .

history

The mining of non-ferrous metals and silver in the Harz dates back to the Bronze Age. Analyzes that were carried out on found slag and unsettled ore chunks from the manor house in Düna in the southern Harz confirm that iron ore was smelted from Bad Grund in the first century , as well as from Upper Harz and Rammelsberg ores in the third century AD.

As early as 968, mining on Rammelsberg was first mentioned in writing in the Res gestae Saxonicae by Widukind von Corvey . According to this chronicle, Otto the Great "opened silver veins in the Sachsenland" ("in Saxonia venas argenti aperuit"). In the old camp in 1999 remains of a leather shoe found that are dated to the 1024th Also in the underground of the old camp a wooden construction was discovered in 2011, which is said to be the oldest wood-secured tunnel in Central Europe to date. From that time on, mining continued uninterrupted in the Harz until after 1990. The mined raw materials included silver , tin , zinc , cobalt , nickel , copper and lead , but also hard coal . Mining was an important motor for the numerous small states that existed in the Harz Mountains and made a significant contribution to an economic boom in this mining region.

Show mines in the Harz Mountains

 Map with all coordinates of the section Germany : OSM

Surname	state	local community	comment	location	image
Knesebeck shaft	Lower Saxony	Bad Grund (Harz)	Pit help of God, lead, zinc, silver, mine extraction	location
Scholmzeche	Lower Saxony	Bad Lauterberg in the Harz Mountains	Lead, zinc, iron	location
Dorothea's pit	Lower Saxony	Clausthal-Zellerfeld	Silver , galena ; Contact: Upper Harz Mining Museum	location
Rosenhof pit	Lower Saxony	Clausthal-Zellerfeld	underground bike rooms , world heritage, contact: Upper Harz Mining Museum	location
Rammelsberg visitor mine	Lower Saxony	Goslar	World Heritage	location
Lautenthals Glück mine for visitors	Lower Saxony	Langelsheim , OT Lautenthal	Galena , zinc blende ; underground navigable waterway, almost 100 m long navigable	location
Catharina Neufang pit	Lower Saxony	Sankt Andreasberg	Lead, silver, mining expansions; Access via Samson Pit	location
Red Bear mine training mine	Lower Saxony	Sankt Andreasberg	former iron ore mine; Great importance is attached to the best possible preservation of the original condition; also serves to produce drinking water	location
Samson Pit Visitor Mine	Lower Saxony	Sankt Andreasberg	last functional driving art in the world, world cultural heritage	location
Wennsglück pit	Lower Saxony	Sankt Andreasberg	Silver, copper pyrites, cobalt; Operation as part of the training mine Red Bear mine	location
19-Lachter-Stollen	Lower Saxony	Wild man	Lead, zinc, hydropower	location
Strassberg mining museum with Glasebach pit	Saxony-Anhalt	Harzgerode , OT Straßberg	Fluorspar	location
Büchenberg show mine	Saxony-Anhalt	Oberharz am Brocken , OT City of Elbingerode (Harz)	iron	location
Visitor mine Drei Kronen & Ehrt	Saxony-Anhalt	Oberharz am Brocken , OT City of Elbingerode (Harz)	former pit pyrite unit; Visitor mine closed from November 1st, 2015	location
Röhrigschacht show mine	Saxony-Anhalt	Sangerhausen , OT Wettelrode	former copper slate mine	location
Rabensteiner Stollen visitor mine	Thuringia	Harz gate , OT Ilfeld	Hard coal mine in the Harz Mountains	location
Lange Wand visitor mine	Thuringia	Harztor, OT Niedersachswerfen	Copper slate	location

Mountain areas

Mansfeld and Sangerhäuser mountain area of ​​Mansfeld AG

The Mansfelder and Sangerhäuser Revier, in which copper slate in particular was mined for more than 500 years, are among the most important mountain areas in the southeastern Harz. One of the most important coal and steel entrepreneurs there was Mansfeld AG . In these two mountain areas, an extremely large number of technical monuments from the centuries-old mining history of the Harz region have been preserved.

Series of publications

Since 2001 the German Mining Museum Bochum has published the book series Montanregion Harz , the authors of which include numerous well-known mining scientists. Thirteen volumes of this series have already appeared in print.

Working group

The project group "Montanregion Harz" of the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen, headed by Dietrich Denecke since 2007 in succession to Karl Heinrich Kaufhold , also bears this name. This working group meets regularly twice a year to exchange the latest research findings from the Harz region.

See also

• Rammelsberg mine, old town of Goslar and Upper Harz water management
• Ore Mountains mining region

literature

• Manfred Rasch : Harz. A coal and steel region in transition , Klartext Verlag, Essen 2008, ISBN 978-3-89861-809-0 .
• Karl Heinrich Kaufhold , Ekkehard Westermann and Hans-Jürgen Gerhard : European Montanregion Harz (= Montanregion Harz. Vol. 1 = Publications from the German Mining Museum Bochum. Vol. 98). German Mining Museum, Bochum 2001, ISBN 3-921533-83-X .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lothar Klappauf et al .: On the trail of an early industrial landscape . Lower Saxony State Office for Monument Preservation, Hameln 2000.
2. ↑ Series of publications Harzer Montanwesen
3. ↑ Klaus Fehn, Anngret Simms (Ed.): Ways of historical geography and cultural landscape research. Selected articles on the occasion of Dietrich Denecke's 70th birthday. Steiner, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-515-08680-3 .