Rhinluch
The Rhinluch is a fen landscape in the north of the state of Brandenburg , which is traversed by the eponymous river Rhin . It essentially extends between the communities of Fehrbellin and Herzberg (Mark) in the Ostprignitz-Ruppin district and the town of Kremmen in the Oberhavel district . The upper Rhinluch covers around 23,000 hectares . The part of the name Luch describes several wetlands in the state of Brandenburg, in whose waters the water stood more than flowed before the installation of modern drainage systems .
The Rhinluch was formed in the last ice age and the post-ice age . First, about 16,000 years ago, the Eberswalde glacial valley emerged as a drainage path for the meltwater from the glacier ice . As the glaciers continued to melt back, this large river valley fell dry during the Ice Age. In individual places in today's Rhinluch lakes initially formed, especially in the area of kettle basins . Over time, these became bogs through the natural silting process . Furthermore, in the post-ice age there was large-scale formation of swamp bogs that grew directly on the sand of the glacial valley. It was only under the influence of humans that these moors were transformed into meadows and pastures as part of amelioration measures . The easternmost branch of the Rhinluch is the Kremmener Luch , which borders the Zehdenick-Spandau Havel lowlands .
The extremely rare European pond turtle is native to the Rhinluch .
The Brandenburg poet Theodor Fontane describes the Rhinluch in his hikes through the Mark Brandenburg as follows:
“Just as the Havelland forms the center of Old Brandenburg, the Luch in turn forms the center of the Havelland. This is about fifty square miles; in these fifty square miles the twenty-two square miles of the lynx are like a core in the shell. The shape of this core is not round, nor oval or elliptical, but mushroom-shaped; like a mushroom with a short, thick stem, a broad umbrella-shaped roof and a large spherical root. The longitudinal section of such a mushroom shows what shape the lynx takes. The lynx consists of two halves, an umbrella-shaped northern part and a spherical southern part, both of which meet closely where the short stalk of the mushroom runs. The umbrella-shaped half is called the Rhinluch, the spherical half the Havelländisches Luch. The link between the two has no special name. This relatively narrow connection piece, corresponding to the stalk of the mushroom, is the result of the fact that sand plateaus have pushed themselves into the Luchgrund from right and left. These sand plateaus have well-known names; the eastern one is called ' Ländchen Bellin ', which has achieved a special historical reputation , the western one is called ' Ländchen Friesack '. These two 'Ländchen' are ancient centers of culture, and their capitals, Fehrbellin and Friesack , were already mentioned when both Luche were still like a lake that dried up into an unhealthy, unsafe marshland in the summer. "
