Teufelssee (Potsdam-Mittelmark)
| Devil's Lake | ||
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| Geographical location | Central Europe , Germany , between Wilhelmshorst and Bergholz-Rehbrücke | |
| Drain | without | |
| Data | ||
| Coordinates | 52 ° 20 '54 " N , 13 ° 4' 14" E | |
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| Maximum depth | 7 m | |
The Teufelssee is a lake south of Potsdam in the Potsdam-Mittelmark district near the Großer Ravensberg.
Emergence
The Teufelssee near Potsdam is a so-called dead ice hole . It was formed during the last ice age around 20,000 years ago. When the huge glaciers melted , it often happened that glacier tongues broke off. These were then covered by washed-off sand and gravel. Often thousands of years passed before these blocks of dead ice, too, melted away as they gradually warmed up. The dead ice hole that forms here lies above a water-impermeable, clay subsoil. So it could fill with meltwater. A small body of water, which is quite deep at 7 meters, remained, which is even deeper than the larger Havel lakes. To the northwest of the lake, about 1.2 km away, is Moosfenn , which is now surrounded by forest .
The Fenn has formed in a deep, drainless depression. This depression was also created by thawing a block of dead ice over a water-impermeable subsurface. The small lake with no outflow, which also once existed here, silted up in the post-ice age . In the extremely nutrient-poor subsoil, a raised bog with a number of characteristic features and very typical vegetation has formed.
The Great Ravensberg is 108.2 m high and belongs to an approximately 20 km long terminal moraine , which begins as a Zauche plateau with the Brauhausberg in the Potsdam urban area and runs south over the Great and Small Ravensberg. The Kleine Ravensberg is 114.2 m high, higher than the big one . During the last ice age, huge masses of sand and gravel were piled up by the inland glacier, which was compressed from the east . The Ravensberge tower over the ground moraine area in front of them in the east and the basin of the Springbruch by more than 80 m.
Flora and fauna
On the steeply sloping bank of the Teufelssee there is almost no reed belt. In the water we find the Canadian waterweed , floating pondweed and water moss . The lake is described as a spawning area for the common toad . There used to be numerous species of fish in the lake. Forest animals prefer the lake for drinking.
The legend of the Teufelssee
The legend of the Teufelssee goes back to the time before the lake was formed and describes the area at the foot of the Ravensberg as a place of devil worship. The Slavic people of the Wends would originally have worshiped their pagan idols here and this was still done secretly after the Christianization of the region. However, the devil removed the Wendish idol in order to replace it with his own image. The Wends now worshiped this and with it the devil. They did not notice the fraud because they only made their secret sacrifices at night.
When conventional efforts to prevent these sacrifices by the local spirituality ran in the Brandenburg sand, the Bishop of Brandenburg had an Italian monk and exorcist called who, after some research, first held a heretic court and then with the support of the local population and some magical rituals, the devil's image distant. Due to the incantations of the monk, it sank into the earth and the lake was created at this point. As the legend finally promises, the evil never completely disappeared from this place.
literature
- Potsdam and its surroundings (= values of the German homeland . Volume 15). 1st edition. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1969.
- Reinhard, K. v. (Ed.): Legends and fairy tales from Potsdam's past. Third edition. Rentel, Potsdam 1869 (Reprint: Leipzig 1989).
