Nuremberg Reichswald
| Nuremberg Reichswald | |||
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| Location: | Bavaria , Germany | ||
| Specialty: | Forest | ||
| Next city: | Nuremberg | ||
| Surface: | 25,000 hectares | ||
| Founding: | approx. 720 | ||
The Reichswald around Nuremberg is a cultural forest area in Bavaria in the north and south-east of Nuremberg .
description
The Reichswald covers an area of around 25,000 hectares . Corresponding to the division of the Nuremberg old town by the Pegnitz into the southern Lorenzer (with the Lorenzkirche ) and the northern Sebalder Altstadt (with the Sebalduskirche ) it also divides the Reichswald into the Lorenzer Reichswald south of the Pegnitz and the Sebalder Reichswald north of the Pegnitz. In the south, an area of around 10,000 hectares can be assigned to the Reichswald, which extends as far as the Rothsee and has only recently been referred to as the southern Reichswald .
In the Middle Ages, the Nuremberg Reichswald belonged to the imperial estate , i.e. the crown estate of the Roman-German electoral kings near their Nuremberg imperial castle and was administered by the imperial city of Nuremberg . The total area of the Sebalder and the Lorenzer Reichswald covered around 32,000 hectares at the beginning of the 19th century and decreased to around 25,000 hectares due to deforestation and use as building land.
The entire Nuremberg Reichswald is part of the Natura 2000 network and designated as an EU bird sanctuary Nuremberg Reichswald ( FFH no. DE-6533-471; WDPA no. 555537802).
The name shows that this forest previously belonged to no other rule, but directly and directly to the emperor, i.e. it was directly imperial .
Flora and fauna
The conifers pine and spruce are dominant . In the entire Reichswald, softwoods have an average share of almost 81%, with 89% higher in the southern Reichswald than in the Sebalder and Lorenzer Reichswald. The average distribution of the pine (62%) compared to the spruce (19%) is distorted by the southern Reichswald, in which the pine is far more common. The Reichswald owes its nickname "Steggerlaswald" to the spread of the pine with its bare trunks.
Originally there were pine-birch-oak mixed forests with oak and pine in a balanced ratio and beech mixed forests. Today's coniferous forests are also the result of centuries of nutrient deprivation through agricultural use of the coniferous litter as litter and fertilizer. The afforestation promoted the fast growing pines and spruces in all centuries and created large monocultures. These encouraged the spread of pests. After the damage intervals had shortened in the previous decades, the 19th century brought two pest disasters caused by the pine owl , spanner and spinner .
With the Reichswald program 1986–2003 a natural mixed forest was aimed for by replanting hardwoods.
In the Reichswald there are 20 different forest types, from wet alder forests to oak-beech and oak-pine forests to lichen-pine forests. In addition to the predominant coniferous forests, there are also quarry and swamp forests along the forest streams, biotopes have developed in the abandoned quarries, the rivers have washed up sandy terraces, from which the fine sand was blown into the forest by storms to form inland dunes. Forest ponds, birch forests, sandy grasslands, forest meadows, heaths and hills complete the picture of a diversity that at first glance is not suspected.
Noticeable drought damage to pines has been observed in Bavaria since 2015 due to the effects of global warming on the regional climate . The Central Franconian forests are particularly affected. The extremely hot and dry summer of 2018 intensified this development, so that there was also massive death of pines in the Nuremberg Reichswald.
Economic use
The main use was the logging for firewood and construction wood as well as the removal of deciduous and coniferous litter for the cattle by the farmers. Especially in times of need, both were operated far too intensively. For a long time smoked the pile of Köhler for the production of charcoal , to which the craft was instructed in earlier times.
Beekeeping was very important in the Middle Ages . Already in 1296 the Zeidler had special rights in the Reichswald. Communities like Feucht , Winkelhaid , Schwaig and Röthenbach near Sankt Wolfgang were Zeidler communities. The Nuremberg Reichswald was considered to be the “Holy Roman Empire of the Bee Garden”, that is to say, a productive bee forest. The Nuremberg gingerbread would have been inconceivable without the honey from the Reichswald.
The Zeidelrecht was a sovereign right in the Reichswald. Associated with this were the rights to use wood and forests, but also the obligation to look after the forests and to pay the “honey money”. From the original forest bee care, one switched to house bee care in the late Middle Ages. The mixed forest allowed two harvests, early and late forage. With the increasing proportion of conifers (from the 14th century), the yields fell. The decline of the Zeidler trade began in the 16th century due to the growing trade with the East (wax and honey) and the importation of cane sugar from the West Indies.
In the Middle Ages, Nuremberg was jokingly referred to as the “sandbox of the empire”. At that time there were about thirty quarries in the Reichswald for the quarrying of sandstones ; Examples are the Schmausenbuck , the Nuremberg zoo and the Kornberg ( Wernloch ) near Wendelstein. The reddish colored, iron-bound castle sandstone was used for building houses and farms. The particularly hard, light-colored quartzite from the Wendelsteiner pits was used for millstones , pavement and the construction of the Ludwig-Danube-Main Canal and some Nuremberg city towers; In 1595 alone around 50,000 stones were delivered to Nuremberg.
In addition to sand and sandstone, clay was also mined. The so-called crucible clay was of special quality and was used in particular to manufacture casting molds for metal goods made in Nuremberg. Of course, clay was also extracted for the production of bricks, most recently in Kalchreuth .
Forest history
With the end of the last ice age about 16,000 years ago, the forest-free tundra was populated by trees and after 9,000 years closed forest had developed: pine-birch-oak, beech and other mixed forests.
Already in the 14th century the forest was overexploited by the removal of wood and litter. In 1368 Peter Stromer planted pines on a large scale for the first time in Europe. The afforestation was repeated in the following centuries, but there was still no sustainable use - Sperber names a 200 percent overuse . In 1385 the Lorenzer and in 1465 the Sebalder Reichswald were protected from further plundering by a ban mile .
A forest report from 1799 rated only two out of ten forest guards in the Sebalder Forest with 60 to 70 year old stands as good. In other hats, only 20- to 40-year-old pines grew and the proportion of wasteland was up to 50%.
The afforestation promoted the fast growing pine and spruce trees and created wide monocultures.
When the province of Ansbach and the Reichswälder passed to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1806, it was no longer possible to speak of a closed forest area. The forest was in a deplorable condition due to legal disputes, excessive red deer populations and massive overuse.
The Royal Bavarian Forest Administration carried out extensive reforestation, but used fast-growing pine and spruce trees as in the centuries before, thereby creating large monocultures. In 1836–1840 the pine owl , spanner and spinner lost around 5000 hectares, in 1894 around a third of the trees fell victim to the caterpillars of the pine moth .
The forest was also massively overexploited during the First and Second World Wars. In addition, large areas for military facilities (ammunition stores, training areas, firing ranges) were lost. Only after the Second World War was the forest able to recover through new silviculture methods and the planting of native deciduous trees.
But more forest areas were sacrificed for the construction of the motorway and the expansion of the settlements. To the land use and the more recent time to put an end to much of the Nuernberg Reich Forest in 1980 became the first forest in Bavaria for protective forest explained.
With the Reich Forest Program 1986–2003 an attempt was made to further develop the forest into a semi-natural mixed forest by replanting hardwoods . During this period, 20 million deciduous trees were planted on an area of 4400 hectares in the Reichswald. Together with an area of roughly the same size that has been converted by regular replacement plantings, a proportion of 20 to 25 percent mixed forest should have been achieved.
In 2006 almost the entire Nuremberg Reichswald was designated as a European bird sanctuary . This then also led to the planning of a bypass road through the Buckenhofer Forest being discontinued in June 2012.
Since the 1970s, the ecological function and use as a recreational area have come to the fore. The Nuremberg Reichswald is part of the Sand Axis Franconia project that began in 2000 . The Reichswaldfest takes place on a weekend in July every year.
Political history
Around 720 the forest between the Rednitz / Regnitz, Schwabach and Schwarzach rivers was given the Franconian royal spell. In the 9th century it became an imperial forest. All rights belonged to the king, who gave them as a fief. In 1003 the previously existing Nordgau was split up, from 1024 the emperors Konrad II. And Heinrich III. a new Reichsland or Reichsdominium , to which the realm forests on both sides of the Pegnitz belonged. 1040 Nuremberg was founded as the administrative headquarters. For administration, the emperor relied on Reichsministerials (Reichsdienstmannen) who had their seats in different places (e.g. in Feucht ). 1138–1254 the imperial country experienced its heyday.
With the fall of the Hohenstaufen the Reichsland or Reichsdominium dissolved. The burgraves of Nuremberg and the imperial city of Nuremberg pushed into the power vacuum . The city of Nuremberg secured numerous rights in the Reichswald, but the exact delimitation with the burgraves, especially with regard to jurisdiction, was not regulated. Only when the burgraves were enfeoffed with the Mark Brandenburg and needed money, an agreement was reached: The imperial city of Nuremberg acquired most of the rights in 1427, but the burgrave retained the high wild ban , the district court and forest rights. From this, the burgraves and margraves of Ansbach-Bayreuth later repeatedly derived claims to the entire imperial forest.
In 1792 the last Margrave, Karl Alexander, abdicated and sold his land to the Kingdom of Prussia . The Prussian minister Freiherr von Hardenberg, who had his seat in Ansbach, enforced the sovereignty over the forests that had been claimed for centuries. In 1796, Prussian troops occupied a large part of the Nuremberg area with the imperial forests.
On March 6, 1806, under French pressure, Prussia had to cede the province of Ansbach and thus the imperial forests to the Kingdom of Bavaria .
geography
The Reichswald is mainly located in the Middle Franconian Basin . Only small parts are located in the foothills of the Northern and Southern Franconian Alb .
The southern Reichswald was added to the original area from around 2000 . According to today's definition, the Nuremberg Reichswald consists of:
- From the Schwabach river in the north to the Pegnitz in the south, from Knoblauchsland and the residential areas of Erlangen and Nuremberg in the west to the city of Lauf in the east.
- From the Pegnitz in the north to the Schwarzach in the south, from the Rednitz or the residential areas of Nuremberg in the west to the town of Altdorf and the community of Leinburg in the east.
- From the Schwarzach in the north to the Rothsee in the south, from the Rednitz or several communities in the west to Burgthann and Mimberg in the east. In addition, the forest area extends east into the Upper Palatinate .
literature
- Description of the Reichswald near Nuremberg in historical and economic terms . Palm, Munich 1853 ( digitized version )
- Georg Sperber : The Reichswälder near Nuremberg - from the history of the oldest artificial forest . Munich and Neustadt an der Aisch 1968 (= communications from the Bavarian State Forest Administration, 37th issue).
- Author collective: Nürnberger Reichswald . HB-Verlag, Hamburg 1982 (= Naturmagazin HB outside , No. 22).
- Ingeborg Rabus: The Nuremberg Reichswald. Its function and its extra-forest uses . Nuremberg 1974 (= Nuremberg economic and socio-geographic works, vol. 22).
- The current vegetation of the Nuremberg Reichswald , PhD thesis by Gerhard Brunner 2005 (PDF file; 3.11 MB).
Documentary film
In 1989, the documentary filmmaker Dieter Wieland showed in his film The Reichswald near Nuremberg the beauty of the Reichswald as well as its endangerment in the past and present. The film was broadcast for the first time in the Topography series of the Bavarian Broadcasting Program Unter Unser Himmel .
Web links
swell
- ↑ Nuremberg Reichswald. Protected Planet, accessed August 5, 2016.
- ↑ Brunner, p. 182.
- ^ M. Ott-Eschke: Pollen analysis investigations in the area of the Nuremberg Reichswald. 1952.
- ↑ sand treasures in Nuremberg Reich Forest. SandAchse project office [2005], p. 12 (PDF; 1.4 MB).
- ↑ a b c Gerhard Brunner and Wolfgang Rahn: Natural History Path between Langwasser and Moorenbrunn ( Memento from July 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). Edited by the Bund Naturschutz, Kreisgruppe Nürnberg. Nuremberg 1996.
- ↑ Bavarian State Institute for Forests and Forestry: Forest Protection Situation in Bavaria 2018 - LWF currently 122.Bavarian State Institute for Forests and Forestry, accessed on November 6, 2019 .
- ↑ Sabine Göb: That is why the Reichswald is currently being massively thinned out. Nürnberger Zeitung, accessed on November 6, 2019 .
- ↑ Dr. W. Schwemmer: Alt-Feucht, Feucht 1977, p. 22
- ↑ Dr. W. Schwemmer: Alt-Feucht, Feucht 1977, p. 25
- ↑ Dr. W. Schwemmer: Alt-Feucht, Feucht 1977, p. 31
- ↑ Sand treasures in the Nuremberg Reichswald, p. 10 (PDF; 1.4 MB)
- ↑ a b G. Sperber: The realm forests near Nuremberg. From the history of the oldest artificial forest. Munich 1968.
- ↑ Ordinance on the definition of European bird protection areas and their area boundaries and conservation goals, general overview of Bavaria: DE6533471 Nürnberger Reichswald. Bavarian State Ministry for the Environment and Consumer Protection.
- ^ Reichswaldfest at the Nuremberg Schmausenbuck. Bund Naturschutz.
- ↑ Dr. W. Schwemmer: Alt-Feucht, Feucht 1977, p. 9
- ↑ Dr. W. Schwemmer: Alt-Feucht, Feucht 1977, p. 20
- ↑ Regional planning association of the industrial region of Middle Franconia identifies the “Südlicher Reichswald” forest (PIM 2000).
- ^ Gerhard Brunner: The current vegetation of the Nuremberg Reich Forest. Studies on the sociology of plants and phytodiversity as a basis for nature conservation. Dissertation University Erlangen-Nürnberg, 2005, DNB 979005345/34 .