Peat house
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Peat house
Mountain and university
Coordinates: 51 ° 48 ′ 9 ″ N , 10 ° 32 ′ 12 ″ E
town Clausthal-Zellerfeld |
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| Height : | 780–821 m above sea level NHN | |
| Residents : | 22 (2011) | |
| Incorporated into: | Altenau | |
| Postal code : | 38667 | |
| Area code : | 05320 | |
Location of Torfhaus in Lower Saxony |
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 View from the Goetheweg to the southern summit of the Lerchenköpfe with the Torfhaus and the NDR broadcast mast Harz-West
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Torfhaus im Harz is a district of the locality Altenau-Schulenberg in the Upper Harz of the mountain and university town of Clausthal-Zellerfeld in the Goslar district . At about 800 m above sea level. NHN it is the highest settlement in Lower Saxony . The tourist resort mainly consists of excursion restaurants, youth homes, ski huts and large parking lots. In July 2013, a holiday complex with a hotel, cabins and an outdoor shop was opened.
Geographical location
Torfhaus is located in the Upper Harz , in a small so-called usage zone of the Harz National Park . It is located around six kilometers east of Altenau and around nine kilometers (each as the crow flies ) south of Bad Harzburg . To the east of Torfhaus , the Radau rises in the Torfhausmoor (also called Radaubornmoor ), a rain moor (high moor) . The federal highway 4 as the main traffic axis leads from Braunschweig coming through Bad Harzburg on the northern edge of the Harz, Torfhaus and Braunlage to Nordhausen on the southern edge of the Harz. West to north-northwest of Torfhaus is the two-headed Lerchenköpfe ridge with the two transmitters Harz-West and Torfhaus .
history
The name "Torfhaus" comes from the sporadic peat extraction there from 1658 onwards . This was finally abandoned in 1786 because the peat did not dry in the prevailing weather. A first building called Borkenkrug is mentioned in the forest office records in 1713. It was obviously a path and / or forest house. Even at that time, the street was a busy connection between Harzburg and Nordhausen.
In 1813 there were six residents and one house in Torfhaus. In 1842 Torfhaus became a post office on the Bad Harzburg – Braunlage – Sankt Andreasberg line . In 1892 two buildings ( upper and lower forestry , the latter was also an inn and post office) with 22 inhabitants were counted.
In 1937 a fire station was built in Torfhaus. Until the fire brigade from Altenau arrived, hotel staff should carry out an initial fire-fighting attack with the hand-operated sprayer stationed in Torfhaus .
In 1943, Baedeker's travel guide Harz mentions the mountain hotel “Torfhaus” (35 beds), the “Brockenkrug” (50 beds), the “Landhaus Brockenblick” (26 beds), a military ski hut and an accommodation house of the Alpine Club branches of Braunschweig and Hanover with 21 beds as recommended accommodation and 16 bearings.
On April 14, 1945, US troops advanced from Altenau towards Torfhaus, but encountered heavy resistance from SS troops and two tanks. The settlement could not be occupied until April 15, but was then under fire from German artillery. In the afternoon there was even a German counterattack, but it was able to be repulsed. In the days that followed, there were repeated small skirmishes and ambushes by scattered German soldiers who were hiding in the woods. When two US soldiers were shot to death on April 25 while entering a ski hut on Schubenstein, the Americans believed that the residents of Torfhaus had lured the soldiers into this ambush. On April 27, residents were ordered to leave their homes and the entire settlement was set on fire . Only one Swiss hut, the Alpine Club hut protected by a Red Cross flag and the “Wilhelmsburg” guest house, were spared this retaliation . The first hotel was not rebuilt until 1949.
The German soldiers killed in these battles were later reburied in the Ehrenfriedhof on the B 4. There are also the graves of 14 unknown Soviet forced laborers.
Until the German reunification in 1990, Torfhaus was primarily known as a vantage point on the nearby, but inaccessible Brocken, which was within easy reach of the inner-German border when visibility was good . There was also an information center of the Federal Border Police about the border security systems of the former GDR .
Plans to build a chapel were not implemented in 1966 and 1971.
Tourism and sport
The National Park Visitor Center TorfHaus of the Harz National Park has been located on Torfhaus since 2009 . There is also a youth hostel run by the German Youth Hostel Association .
Torfhaus is a popular starting point for hikes. For example, you can walk on the Goetheweg , which is part of the Harzer Hexenstieg , past the Torfhausmoor and the Quitschenberg to the Brocken , but also to the triangular pile . Other paths lead via Wurmberg or Achtermannshöhe to Braunlage, others as Magdeburger Weg towards Altenau or past the steep wall to the cradle of the dam ditch . Another hiking trail is the Schubensteinweg , which leads east from Torfhaus. In addition, several mountain bike trails lead through Torfhaus. Racing and touring cyclists prefer to drive to the village via the state road 504 coming from Altenau, which is also known as the “Steile Wand”. The “Brockenblick” large car park is a popular meeting point for motorcyclists .
There are also trails for cross-country skiing on the Lerchenköpf . There is also a toboggan run with a lift and a ski slope with a drag lift.
National Park Monument
A national park monument was erected on the edge of the “Brockenblick” parking lot on the occasion of the EXPO in 2000. In the middle of the monument there is a metal globe, around which there are three boulders made of diabase , gabbro and granite at an angle of about 120 ° . On one of the boulders there is a plaque with a description of the monument in German. Between each of the three boulders there is a writing tablet embedded in the ground on which the sentence "National parks - preserve the natural heritage" is written in a total of 30 languages:
- Blackboard (ten languages): Albanian , Arabic , Chinese , Danish , German , English , Finnish , French , Greek , Hebrew
- Blackboard (ten languages): Hindi , Italian , Japanese , Croatian , Latvian , Lithuanian , Dutch , Norwegian , Polish , Portuguese
- Blackboard (ten languages): Romanian , Russian , Swedish , Serbian , Slovenian , Spanish , Swahili , Czech , Turkish , Hungarian
Monument, earth globe
Monument, tablet with description in German
Monument, 1st plaque in the ground
Monument, 2nd tablet in the ground
Monument, 3rd plaque in the ground
Transmitters
The two peaks of the lark's heads belonging to Torfhaus are locations for radio transmission systems . The Harz-West transmitter is operated by the North German Broadcasting Corporation ( NDR ), the Torfhaus transmitter by the German radio tower ( DFMG ). The transmission tower of the NDR on the Südkuppe that the spread of digital television DVB-T and FM - radio broadcasting service, is 235 meters high. The DFMG broadcasting systems (Nordkuppe) are used for broadcasting VHF radio and directional radio and are 130 m and 57 m high.
Brocken panorama
the hill in front of the Königsberg (half right) is the Quitschenberg ; in the foreground on the left the toboggan run at the Brockenblick toboggan lift
Personalities
The aviation pioneer Walter Spengler (1896–1930) lived in Torfhaus for a time , for whom the Spenglerstein was built at the southern entrance to the village .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Harz National Park
- ↑ Georg Hassel: Statistical Reportium about the Kingdom of Westphalia . 1813, p. 109 .
- ↑ 75 years of the Altenau volunteer fire brigade . 1976, p. 6 .
- ↑ Ulrich Saft: War in the home ..... to the bitter end in the Harz military book publisher Saft, Walsrode, 1994
- ↑ Manfred Bornemann , Fateful Days in the Harz, the events in April 1945 , Ed. Piepersche Verlagsanstalt, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, 1978
- ↑ Hellmuth Raabe: History of the Torfhaus settlement. Information brochure, published by the Sporthotel "Brockenblick", Torfhaus, 1969
- ↑ Hellmuth Raabe: History of the Torfhaus settlement. Information brochure, published by the Sporthotel "Brockenblick", Torfhaus, 1969
- ↑ Bicycle route in the Harz Mountains with “Steiler Wand” and elevation profile , accessed on October 7, 2012.
Altenau-Schulenberg in the Upper Harz with Altenau (incl. Torfhaus , Bastesiedlung , Gemkenthal , Polstertaler Zechenhaus and Dammhaus ) and Schulenberg in the Upper Harz (incl. Festenburg , Mittelschulenberg and Oberschulenberg ) | Buntenbock | Clausthal-Zellerfeld with Clausthal and Zellerfeld (including Hereditary Prince Fir ) | Wild man