Rieswarte

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Rieswarte

The Rieswarte or Nikolausberger Warte , northeast of the Nikolausberg district of Göttingen , is the ruin of a waiting tower of the outer medieval Landwehrring of the city of Göttingen .

Geographical location

The Rieswarte is located in the Göttingen Forest on the edge of the Pleßforst about 2.4 kilometers north-northeast of the center of Nikolausberg at 352  m above sea level. NN . Immediately north of the observation point is a forest path branch ( 352.5  m above sea level ) of two farm roads, the fields south of the observation point are labeled “Above the Hevel”, to the west and north of the observation point the area falls to the upper part of the approximately 500 meters away Billingshausen gorge. Deppoldshausen is 2.2 kilometers west-northwest, the neighboring Roringer Warte (Berwinkelswarte) is 2,485 meters southeast at around 325  m above sea level. NNand the market square of the city of Göttingen 6.7 kilometers southwest of the Rieswarte. The Bratental nature reserve connects to the south and east of the observation point .

Building description

Rieswarte from the east with surrounding wall

The control room originally had a trapezoidal enclosure wall, presumably around 4 meters high, with access in the northwest, the remains of which give an impression of the facility on three sides. In front of the wall was a shallow trough-shaped ditch and a hedge . Within the wall, in addition to the watch tower, there are archaeological records of three former buildings, one of which was identified as a stable, another as a residential or farm building and the third building in the middle of the complex as a work hut, probably for textile and metal processing . The guard tower stands directly on the north-western wall, has an approximately circular floor plan and a wall thickness of around 1.20 meters, an entrance that is now closed by a grille is located in the southwest. The tower originally had a height of around 19 meters and the upper structure was made of timber. Today the shaft is still around 5 meters high. A sewer was integrated in the tower, which was located on the wall side, so that the rubbish did not end up inside the system.

To the north-east of the control room, a remnant of the former Landwehr is still preserved at the edge of the forest, which is cut through by the field / forest road that leads directly past the control room. The wall with the ditch behind it, which can be seen today in the forest, is differently recognizable over a length of several hundred meters, the height difference between the bottom of the ditch and the crest of the wall is up to 1.50 meters. It can be assumed that the ditch used to be considerably deeper and that the wall was overgrown as a kink with impenetrable thorn bushes and could therefore serve as an effective delimitation.

history

Remnants of the Landwehr at the Rieswarte

On June 19, 1380, Duke Otto der Quade of Braunschweig wrote to the Göttingen City Council in connection with a longer document:

Ok sint we mit on eyndrechtich gheworden, dat se moghen lantwere graven unde graven laten unde warde buwen unde buwen laten, wur on de duncket comfortable unde gud sin, umme de stad to Gottingen unde moghen borchvrede, warde, slaghe ande bome uppe de lantwere setten laten unde de bewaren unde guarded laten, alse se best moghen, unde dar scholde me us ande our denere ut unde in laten, wanne we dat eat ande us des nod is.

(New High German: We [= Duke Otto, pluralis majestatis ] have also come to an agreement with them that they are allowed to dig and have land weirs dig around the city of Göttingen and to have maintenance buildings built and built where it seems appropriate and good to them, and Keeps , waiting areas and barriers are set up on the land forces and they are allowed to be fastened and fastened as best they can, and there we and our servants should be let out and in if we demand it and it is necessary for us.)

In accordance with this permit, the city began to build landwehr lines, which were secured by waiting on important roads and favorable observation points. The expansion took place in two irregular rings around the city, later a third Landwehr line was laid in the south. The Rieswarte formed the northeast corner of the second Landwehr line. It was built 1438–42 and secured the road via Gillersheim towards Harz ; therefore it was not set up as a pure observation and early warning station on the top of the mountain, but has visual contact with the neighboring Roringer Warte. In old descriptions, the control room is also called "white control room" or, according to its location, is called "hoen warde hinder sinte Nicolaes". As early as the 15th century, the Landwehr system and the waiting areas began to deteriorate. In addition to the difficult economic situation and the high maintenance costs for the city, the cause was probably the further development of war technology with more and more widespread and more sophisticated firearms. In addition, the city and the landed gentry lost more and more power in relation to the sovereignty. The Rieswarte was probably abandoned at the beginning of the 16th century.

In the years 1980-82 archaeological investigations were carried out at the Rieswarte by the city ​​archeology of Göttingen under the direction of Sven Schütte , after which the ruins were partially restored and secured.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Geolife.de-Navigator of the State Office for Geoinformation and Land Surveying Lower Saxony (LGLN)
  2. ^ The Oberstadtdirektor of the city of Göttingen, surveying office (ed.): City map - scale 1: 10000 . Processing status 1991–1994 with supplements up to 10/95.
  3. ^ Lower Saxony environmental maps. Lower Saxony Ministry for the Environment, Energy, Building and Climate Protection, accessed on December 31, 2019 .
  4. ^ Sven Schütte: Rieswarte Nikolausberg . In: Guide to archaeological monuments in Germany . tape 17 : City and district of Göttingen. Konrad Theiss, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-8062-0544-2 , p. 255 .
  5. ^ Document book of the city of Göttingen up to the year 1400 . In: Gustav Schmidt (Hrsg.): Document book of the historical association for Lower Saxony . Book VI. Hahn'sche Hofbuchhandlung, Hanover 1863, * 294, p. 309 .
  6. ^ Sven Schütte: The fortifications of the city of Göttingen in the Middle Ages . In: Guide to archaeological monuments in Germany . tape 17 : City and district of Göttingen. Konrad Theiss, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-8062-0544-2 , Die Warten und Landwehren, p. 142-144 .
  7. ↑ Dietrich Denecke : Göttingen in the network of medieval traffic routes . In: Dietrich Denecke, Helga-Maria Kühn (ed.): Göttingen. History of a university town . tape 1 : From the beginning to the end of the Thirty Years War. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987, ISBN 3-525-36196-3 , pp. 362-364 .

Web links

Commons : Rieswarte  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Rieswarte. In: Wells – Monuments – Art in Göttingen. City of Göttingen, Culture Service, accessed on May 12, 2012 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 34 ′ 46 ″  N , 9 ° 59 ′ 49.1 ″  E