Devil's Wall (Harz)

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Devil's Wall (Harz)
The rock face of the Teufelsmauer, here the Königstein near Weddersleben

The rock face of the Teufelsmauer, here the Königstein near Weddersleben

location District of Harz ( Saxony-Anhalt ), north of the Harz ( Germany )
Devil's Wall (Harz) (Saxony-Anhalt)
Devil's Wall (Harz)
Coordinates 51 ° 45 ′  N , 11 ° 5 ′  E Coordinates: 51 ° 45 ′  N , 11 ° 5 ′  E
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The Teufelsmauer in the Harz district in Saxony-Anhalt is a rock formation in the northern Harz foreland consisting of hard sandstones from the Upper Chalk , which runs for about 20 km from Ballenstedt via Rieder and Weddersleben to Blankenburg (Harz) . Numerous prominent outstanding individual rocks of the resin cliffs wearing proper names, like the eagle rock , the Caesar rocks or the emblem of Hamburg .

Many legends and myths have emerged in order to explain the particularity of this place. It was therefore placed under protection by the district administrator in 1833 and 1852 in order to prevent the mining of the coveted building sandstone. The Teufelsmauer near Weddersleben has been designated as a nature reserve Teufelsmauer and Bode northeast of Thale since 1935, making it one of the oldest nature reserves in Germany.

The northern edge of the Harz with the Teufelsmauer was added to the list of 77 awarded national geotopes in 2006.

course

The rock ridge of the Teufelsmauer appears in the Harz / Saxony-Anhalt Nature Park between Ballenstedt in the southeast and Blankenburg (Harz) in the northwest over a length of 20 km in three places. It begins with the counter stones northwest of Ballenstedt. Its continuation can be found in the Teufelsmauer north of Neinstedt and south of Weddersleben , where the Königstein, the Mittelsteine ​​and the Papensteine ​​line up over two kilometers from southeast to northwest; The Bode flows through the rock formation between Neinstedt and Weddersleben as the largest river in the area. To the northwest, past Warnstedt , the rocky ridge between Timmenrode and Blankenburg with the Hamburg coat of arms , the thunderstorm grotto , the frog rock and the Heidelberg ( 331.5  m above sea  level ), grandfather rock ( 317.1  m above sea level ) and grandmother rock away. South of the west end of the Teufelsmauer in Blankenburg is the listed building Hotel Victoria Luise, built in 1893 as an Art Nouveau villa .

geology

Devil's armchair on the devil's wall

The rock cliffs of the Teufelsmauer are formed by hard sandstones from different epochs of the Upper Cretaceous . The predominantly clayey - calcareous layers of the Upper Cretaceous are solid sandstones (Involutus and Heidelberg sandstone) and limestone. By silicification due penetrating silica , it also came to an extreme hardening of the sandstones of the then horizontal layers deposited is limited but within a few meters.

The rock strata, like all strata on the northern edge of the Harz, were made steep or overturned by the uplifting of the resin that lasted until the Cretaceous period, so that the layer surfaces now face downwards. A hiatus between Lias and Lower Cretaceous and until limestone cross, discordant storage of the Upper Cretaceous show activities at different times, mainly in the Northern Harz Boundary Fault occurred.

As a result of the subsequent removal of the softer rock sections, the hard rock layers became distinctive stratified ribs that tower over their surroundings with up to 20 m high rocks. Some parts were destroyed by the effects of the rivers or by ice age glaciers . That is why the Teufelsmauer has various gaps today. Above all, a different course of the Bode is responsible for this.

The individual segments of the Teufelsmauer are not all of the same age. The Gegensteine at Ballenstedt are from a silicified sandstone layer of the Emscher epoch (Involutus sandstone) weathered out . The steep stratified ribs at Blankenburg consist of quartzitic and steep Heidelberg sandstones from the Santon , just like the outstanding stratified ribs of the Teufelsmauer near Weddersleben. It reaches its greatest heights with the Mittelstein ( 185.2  m above sea level ) and the Königsstein ( 184.5  m above sea level ) and is thus about 50 m above the Bode.

Nutrient-poor raw soils of the sand syroseme and regosole type have emerged from the sand of the sandstones .

archeology

Memorial plaque for Carl Löbbecke

Archaeological traces of the Paleolithic , the linear ceramic and the Bronze Age can be proven. The first settlers were already present during the Stone Age, as several Stone Age quartzite tools such as core stones, chips and a hand ax were recovered. Karl Schirwitz pointed out that the cliffs were used in historical times for the extraction of broken stone and paving stones, "whereby manageable cuts, including blade-shaped ones, can be easily and numerous enough." He clearly arranges the roughly cut large forms of the central stones into the stone age.

As early as 1922, Adolf Brinkmann established the former existence of a settlement: “The devil's wall, which slopes steeply to the northeast, appears on its southern side as a prehistoric rampart on which one can still see the deepening of the former huts.” From what time Wallburg could come from, but leaves it open.

Another settlement was located in 1980 in the area of ​​the eastern part of the Königsstein. Several shards and stone utensils from the younger linear ceramics were found here as reading finds .

In the period before 1931 a Bronze Age hoard was found and brought to the museum in Quedlinburg . There are several Bohemian heel axes that are dated to the Bronze Age.

history

Siegfried von Ballenstedt (1075–1113), Count Palatine near the Rhine and Count of Weimar-Orlamünde was attacked on February 21, 1113 by imperial partisans at the Teufelsmauer near Warnstedt. Although he survived the attack, seriously injured, he died of the consequences on March 9th.

Impressed by the geology, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe visited the legendary sandstone wall in 1784. The Goethestein erected in 2005 is a reminder of this . The Prussian government placed the Teufelsmauer and 135.37 hectares of the surrounding area under nature protection as early as June 8, 1852 due to the uniqueness of the geological-morphological conditions, but also because of the specifics of the area's flora with special vegetation.

In the western part of the Teufelsmauer, a cast-iron plaque is embedded in the prominent rock formation of the Löbbecke-Felsen , which commemorates the Blankenburg mayor Carl Löbbecke (1809–1869).

Otto Stielow (1831–1908) made special contributions to the preservation of the Teufelsmauer natural monument when in 1867 he forbade the community of Weddersleben to use it as a quarry.

During the Nazi era, a red flag is said to have been set on the Adlerfelsen in 1934/35 . The polluters could not be determined. Due to the difficult accessibility, it should have taken almost two years for a climber to catch up with them. It turned out that it was a red petticoat .

A memorial stone marks a place where a fallen German soldier, whose identity remained unknown, was buried by local residents in April 1945.

Flora and fauna

Silver grass lawn on the Teufelsmauer near Weddersleben

The slopes of the ridge below the Teufelsmauer form sandy and blocky weathering products. Soils poor in nutrients developed, especially sand syrosems and regosols. Due to the poor properties of the soil in terms of water balance and the differences in exposure, very specific vegetation elements are widespread on the sites below the Teufelsmauer, which differ greatly from the loess- covered areas in the area. They range from poor grasslands and dwarf shrub heaths to dry and semi-arid grasslands to ruderal communities, i.e. mostly inconspicuously flowering debris plants that are characterized by a high degree of adaptability, great viability and strong reproduction. The field gentian (Gentianella campestris) and the hairy gorse (Genista pilosa) are important from a floristic point of view .

The sandy soils are populated with blue fescue-silvergrass- sandy grasslands , the pioneer vegetation of open, sunny sand areas outside the coastal areas. The lawns are rich in colorful blooming herbs such as sand thyme ( Thymus serpyllum ), mountain sand bells ( Jasione montana ) and Carthusian carnation ( Dianthus carthusianorum ). In the open sandy areas, species of field flora and roadsides have also settled in places. The vegetation is also characterized by numerous heat indicators such as common adder's head ( Echium vulgare ), common broom mustard ( Descurainia sophia ) and stone wilt ( Prunus mahaleb ) as well as many subcontinental species such as gray cress ( Berteroa incana ), field man litter ( Eryngium campestre ), field litter mugwort ( Artemisia campestris ), panicles knapweed ( Centaurea stoebe ) and vegetables asparagus ( asparagus officinalis ). The sandstone cliffs themselves have a slight vegetation with lichen crust .

Striking individual rocks, caves and special features

Numerous prominent outstanding individual rocks of the resin cliffs wearing proper names, like the eagle rock , the Caesar rocks or the emblem of Hamburg .

Hiking and climbing

The rock bands of the Teufelsmauer are accessible by hiking trails. They are among the attractions of the cities of Thale and Blankenburg. The ridge path from the Hamburg coat of arms to the grandfather rock was laid out in 1853 by the Blankenburg mayor Carl Löbbecke , in whose memory a cast iron plaque was erected on the Löbbecke rock ; this section of the route is also known as the Löbbeckestieg . The Timmenrode – Blankenburg section of the European long-distance hiking trail E11 runs along the rock formation.

In order to protect protected plant species, measures to guide visitors have become necessary in the Teufelsmauer nature reserve. The rocky areas can be experienced from the hiking trails, which are secured with barriers in many places.

At one point on the Teufelsmauer between Neinstedt and Weddersleben there is a stamp number 188 ( ) in the system of the Harz hiking pin ; further stamping points along the wall are at Timmenrode on the Hamburg coat of arms (no.74) and at Blankenburg below the grandfather rock at the Gasthaus Großvater (no.76;  ).

The Teufelsmauerstieg, which was inaugurated in August 2009 as a 35 km long hiking trail, leads along all the rocky elevations of the Teufelsmauer between Ballenstedt and Blankenburg.

Several of the rocks of the Teufelsmauer near Blankenburg are open for climbing.

Say of the devil's wall

Detail of the Teufelsmauer near Thale

From the collection of the Brothers Grimm

“On the northern Harze, between Blankenburg and Quedlinburg, south of the village of Thale, you can see a rocky surface that the people call the devil's dance floor and not far from there are ruins of an old wall, opposite of which a large rocky reef rises north of the village. The people call this rubble and this reef: Devil's Wall. The devil fought for a long time with the good Lord about the rule of the earth. (Actually: The devil built it in order to share the world with God. But since he had been given a certain time for this, and the whole wall was not finished within the time limit, the evil one threw out of anger, working on nothing had to turn over a large part of the work, so that only a few individual pieces were left standing.) Finally, a partition of the land then inhabited was agreed upon. The rocks, where the dance floor is now, should separate the border and the devil built his wall with a loud dance of jubilation. But soon the insatiable new quarrel arose, which ended with the fact that the valley at the foot of that rock was added to him. There was a second devil's wall on top of it. "

Say of the three elves

“A soldier once received a piece of land behind Thale, towards the Devil's Wall, as thanks for his services. He cleared it in the sweat of his brow. He was almost done his day's work. The trunks lay back and forth, the branches hung withered. There were only three trees left against the evening sky and he was too tired to lay hands on them. As he was falling asleep, however, it seemed to him as if he heard wailing and wailing and he saw small female figures, shimmering through like clouds of mist, in the branches, who showed that they should now lose their lives like their sisters. 'You shouldn't be hurt,' he shouted, keeping his word. When, however, many years later a descendant cut down these trees too, the ground withered away and the wind carried him away and with him the wealth. So it happens to all those who do not want to respect the little ghosts and see nothing more than themselves and their greed. "

Say of the devil and the rooster

The legend of the "devil and cock" in the Harz foreland can be found in two versions:

The first variant of the legend has a market woman with a cock from Cattenstedt , a small village near Blankenburg : “God and the devil fought over possession of the earth; They agreed that God should keep the fertile plains, the devil should get the ore-containing Harz Mountains if he had a border wall ready by the first cockcrow. He built them up to the edge of the Harz. When a stone was still missing, the cock crows, which a market woman from Cattenstedt, who was on the way to Blankenburg, had in the basket. The work was in vain and the devil furiously smashed his work. "

The farmer's wife from Timmenrode has the second variant : “In gray times ago the devil agreed with the master to separate property. But the Harz should be his domain. So they bet each other that he would be allowed to have the area if he could pull a wall around it in a single night, heavy and iron like the buildings of the emperors. No sooner said than done, the brickwork grew in the dark. Then the gentleman made a peasant woman from Timmenrode go to the market with her cock in her basket and let her stumble over a small pebble. Then the cock in the basket craned its neck and began to crow. The devil believed the night was over and threw the keystone against the building in anger, so that only fragments remained. "

There are several versions from the Lower Bavarian Danube region contrasting these two forms of the North Harz wall legend with bet and cock.

Devil's Wall in the film

Devil's Wall from afar
Hamburg coat of arms near Timmenrode

Feature films

The peculiar rock formation has been a popular setting for numerous films - especially those from the Middle Ages - since the 1960s. During the GDR era, DEFA shot numerous films here such as:

After German reunification , the devil's wall served as a motif for national and international film productions:

Film documentaries and reports

  • Teufel, Gojko and Komparsen - How DEFA conquered the Harz Mountains (MDR 2013; Author: Steffen Jindra; Moderator: Axel Bulthaupt ; Length: 29:43 minutes)
  • The Teufelsmauer was a station by Katja Ebstein in her television series Unterwegs in der DDR (ARD; 1984–1989)

literature

Web links

Commons : Teufelsmauer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Hans-Joachim Franzke: Classic square mile of geology - the northern edge of the Harz and the devil's wall. In: Ernst-Rüdiger Look, Ludger Feldmann (Ed.): Fascination Geology. The important geotopes of Germany. E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-510-65219-3 , p. 36f.
  2. Frank Schmidt-Döhl : The emergence of the dry valley southeast of Langenstein and the pre-glacial course of the Bode in the northern Harz foreland , in: Hallesches Jahrbuch für Geoswissenschaften 38 (2016), pp. 29-40.
  3. Jahresschrift (1980/81) , p. 372, and reports of findings from Saxony-Anhalt . In: Annual Journal for Central German Prehistory, Halle 70 (1987), p. 251.
  4. Adolf Brinkmann: Descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments of the district and the city of Quedlinburg , Vol. 1 (Descriptive representation of the older art monuments of the Province of Saxony 33). Berlin 1922, p. 3.
  5. Location: Landesmuseum Halle 80: pp. 161–163.
  6. Karl Schirwitz, Der Bronzeschatzfund vom Lehof bei Quedlinburg , in: Annual publication for the prehistory of the Saxon-Thuringian countries 19 , 1931, p. 61, note 1
  7. Axel and Volker Mothes: Harzer Klippen- & Stiegenwelt, Vol. 1 , Halle / Saale 2011, p. 165.
  8. 150 years of protection of the Teufelsmauer - conference and festive event on June 8th, 2002 in Weddersleben (reports from the State Office for Environmental Protection Saxony-Anhalt)
  9. Kay Förster: De Düwelsmur tau Wedderslewe . Weddersleben 2006, p. 23 f.
  10. Hike over the Teufelsmauer on www.harz-urlaub.de
  11. Harzer Wanderadel: stamp point 188 / Teufelsmauer Weddersleben (devil's wall) , on harzer-wandernadel.de
  12. Harzer Wanderadel: Stamp number 76 / Großvaterfelsen (Gasthaus Grossvater) , on harzer-wandernadel.de
  13. The Devil's Wall , in Das Bodetal , on bodetal.de
  14. a b Teufel, Gojko and Komparsen - How the DEFA conquered the Harz Mountains ( Memento of the original from June 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , from The East - Discover Where You Live , MDR; 2013, on mdr.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mdr.de
  15. ^ Teufelsmauer (Entries in the Internet Movie Database ; IMDB), accessed on March 12, 2017, from imdb.com