Walddrehna

Walddrehna Municipality Heideblick Coordinates: 51 ° 46 ′ 38 "  N , 13 ° 37 ′ 29"  E
Height :	120 m
Area :	14.46 km²
Residents :	629  (December 31, 2016)
Population density :	43 inhabitants / km²
Incorporation :	October 26, 2003
Postal code :	15926
Area code :	035455
Location of Walddrehna in Brandenburg

View from Königsberg into the Luckau basin with the city skyline of Luckau

Walddrehna ( Serbski Drjenow in Lower Sorbian ) is the largest district of the Heideblick municipality in the Dahme-Spreewald district in southern Brandenburg .

location

The place is about twelve kilometers southwest of the city of Luckau on the state road 561. The village is located directly on the Berlin-Dresden railway line with its own stop. The RE3 regional train stops in town every two hours.

Walddrehna is located on the high plateau of the Niederlausitz border wall, which drops about 1 km northeast of the village by about 70 m steeply into the Lucka basin. The village is surrounded on all sides by pine forests. To the west, the Rochauer Heide borders on Walddrehna, which is one of the largest closed forest areas in Brandenburg. The highest peaks are the Mosesberg and the Green Mountain with 140.5 m and the Königsberg with 139.8 m. Not far from the Königsberg in the Gehrener Mountains lies the largest boulder in southern Brandenburg, the Teufelsstein, in the district of Walddrehnas.

history

First documentary mention

The place was first mentioned in a document in 1481 in a deed of lease as Drenau . In earlier documents from 1446 and 1460 a Michel von Drenow is mentioned. From the 15th century the place got the addition Wendisch or Windisch to avoid confusion with the nearby German , later Fürstlich - Drehna. During the Aryanization in 1937 Wendisch-Drehna became Walddrehna.

Early history

Two Bronze Age urn graves of the Lausitz culture bear witness to the first settlement in Walddrehna between approx. 1400 and 500 BC. About 700 years later, about 200 AD, Germanic tribes settle in Walddrehna . During building history studies on the village church in Walddrehna, stones of unusual shapes caught the eye. These stones are so-called cinder blocks that were created as waste products in the production of iron. The iron-containing lawn iron stone was smelted in the so-called racing furnace. Germanic kilns were found during archaeological excavations near Waltersdorf (near Luckau). Due to the large number of cinder residues that were found around Walddrehna, this suggests Germanic iron smelting in the place. The Germanic tribes resident here withdrew to what is now Thuringia during the great migration. The freed area east of the Elbe was occupied by the Slavic tribe of the Lusitzi .

middle Ages

On the "Green Mountain" between Walddrehna and Gehren, unknown builders built the Jarina Castle, which is allegedly named after Margrave Gero , around the year 960 . The construction of the hilltop castle, which is unique in medieval Lower Lusatia, is probably related to the margrave's campaign, documented three years later, against the local Slavic Lusitzi tribe , whose princes he made tribute to the East Franconian Emperor Otto I. Around 50 years later, probably for the year 1010, the castle was built in connection with Henry II's Polish campaigns . First mentioned in the chronicle of Thietmar von Merseburg . During his third campaign against the Polish Duke Boleslaw Chobry , who did not want to recognize Heinrich's position of power as an authority direct from God, he gathered his army in Belgern on the Elbe. On the way to the enemy territory, however, Heinrich fell ill at Jarina Castle, which was now under the leadership of Margrave Gero (Lausitz) , and took his sick bed at this castle. Here they arrested two brothers from Brandenburg Castle on the Havel, who had visited the Bohemian King to oppose Heinrich II. When they refused to report their plan, they were hanged on a nearby hill, probably on the Green Mountain. The emperor returned to the empire accompanied by a few bishops. The remaining contingents devastated the surrounding area before they also began their homecoming. After the area between the Elbe and Lusatian Neisse in 11/12. In the 19th century, settlers from southern and central Germany migrated to the still largely uninhabited Mark Lausitz and founded the street village of Wendischdrehna in the second half of the 12th century . A few years later, in the last quarter of the 12th century, the Romanesque stone church was built as a rectangular hall with a retracted semicircular apse and is therefore one of the oldest buildings in Brandenburg as part of a small group of churches south of Luckau. After a fire in the 15th century, the church was rebuilt in the late Gothic style. All window and door openings were rebuilt in an ogival shape with molded stone archivolts. On the two round stone pillars in front of the west gable, high pointed arch arcades were placed on which an eight-sided brick helmet rests. The village belonged to the Sonnewalde lordship from time immemorial and until the 16th century consisted of seven farms, a tavern and a windmill on the Grüner Berg. At the end of the 16th century, the Lords of Sonnewalde built a count's hunting lodge as a two-storey half-timbered building on the eastern edge of the village, which was later used as a forester's house.

Two of the most important trade routes in Lower Lusatia crossed in the medieval village of Wendischdrehna. One led from Hamburg and Lüneburg to Silesia , Bohemia and Austria , while the second, known as the Frankfurter Geleis, connected Leipzig and Central Germany with Frankfurt (Oder) and East Prussia and thus developed into one of the most important trade routes in Central Europe during the Hanseatic period . In the course of the 16th and 17th centuries the route shifted about 2 km to the north and now corresponded to the federal road 87. This high volume of traffic was probably also the reason why the Dominican monastery Luckau established a begging order district in Wendischdrehna around 1500. Franke, Ellen: Dominikanerkloster Luckau, in: Klosterbuch Brandenburg Handbuch der Klosterbuch der Kloster, Stifts und Kommenden up to the middle of the 16th century, Berlin 2007 In addition to commercial traffic, the commercial routes also served as a preferred route for pilgrims, as the necessary infrastructure was available. The trade route from Frankfurt / Oder to Leipzig thus became one of the main pilgrimage routes from the eastern German provinces and Poland on the Way of St. James to the grave of St. James in Santiago de Compostela . In addition to agriculture, mining developed into an important branch of business. According to an invoice, lime was processed for the first time in 1561 and delivered to Sonnewalde.

Modern times

The biggest turning point in local history came during the Thirty Years' War in the winter of 1636/1637. The Swedish troops lived in the Lower Lusatia in the most horrific way and devastated and burned the village of Wendischdrehna. All residents were either killed or had left the village. Only the church, the forestry and the inn survived the horrors of this war. In the second half of the 17th century, Count Solms von Sonnewalde built an estate district with an estate, a sheep farm and a brickworks, and thus claimed a good 80 percent of the village area. He used a two-story half - timbered building from the 16th century, which was built as a forester's house and now served as a hunting lodge. In 1718 the Wendisch-Drehna manor district existed with a Drehna Vorwerk , a jug , a count's hunting lodge and a mutton barn. The count used the hunting lodge and half of the mutton stall himself; the remaining shares were leased. One of the economically most successful tenants was Heinrich Wilhelm Nathusius , who at a later date also leased the properties in Weissagk and Waltersdorf. Over time, farmers settled again in the village who could cultivate 252 hectares. Until the onset of industrialization there were 7 large gardeners, 9 medium gardeners, 6 allotment gardeners and 2 cottagers as well as the tenants and their employees. The mutton barn was later expanded to become the Karlshof sheep farm ; a remains are in the 21st century on the road to Waltersdorf. The main source of income for the estate, however, was the distillery, which produced 92% fuel.

industrialization

Union flag for the Wendisch Drehna lignite works

A distillery was built on the estate between 1833 and 1836 by Count Solms von Sonnenwalde. In 1854, one of the first lignite mines in Niederlausitz was also opened by the Count. The coal was mined underground and brought to the surface by means of a reel. 20 years later, the Franziska mine was registered with the mining authorities at the same location . The mining took place in shallow, underground shafts that reached down to 40 m. From 1877 onwards, the coal was transported and loaded to the Wendischdrehna station by horse-drawn tram. In the seven years of operation of the mine, 20,000 tons of coal were extracted.

The actual industrialization began with the commissioning of the Drähna train station on the Berlin-Dresdener Eisenbahn in 1875. This led to the settlement of several factories such as a flower pot and pottery factory, a steam saw and planing mill, a steam mill and a canning factory. After the Barbarossa lignite mine in the neighboring municipality of Gehren was put into operation, a 3100 m long cable car powered by a steam engine was built in 1894 to transport the coal from Gehren to Wendischdrehna station. A press coal factory (briquette factory) was later built south of the station. In 1899, lignite mining in the Wendischdrehna mining area was stopped as a result of bankruptcy.

The settlement of these branches of industry in Drähna and the resulting new jobs resulted in a sudden increase in the population. From 228 inhabitants in 1840 the number rose to 514 by 1900. This led to the expansion of the village. For example, the newly laid road from the village to the train station south of it was built on. Today's Poststrasse has also been expanded to the south. The old school building was sold to a villager in 1905 for 215 marks and a new building was built. The manor district was dissolved with effect from October 1, 1928 and incorporated into the village.

Recent history after 1945

Shortly after the end of World War II, the entire village was occupied by the Russian army. All villagers had to leave their farms and were quartered in the village of Beesdau . After returning, u. a. the distillery and the cowshed of the estate burned down. The trigger was Russian soldiers who got drunk with the high-proof schnapps stored in the distillery. A soldier was killed in the process, whereupon the commandant set fire to the distillery building on the estate. The community suspected on an information board on the village green that the cowshed caught fire due to flying sparks and, like the distillery, burned down on the foundation walls. The manor house was used as a community office and then as a day nursery until 1989.

In May 1971, the railway construction regiment 2 "Erich Steinfurth" was moved from Gehren (Heideblick) to Walddrehna in a newly built barracks with a connection to the Berlin-Dresden railway line. At the same time, four blocks of flats, a high school with a gym and a daycare center were built in the Pilzheide. In 1971 there was a chimney fire in the forestry department, in which the building was badly damaged and then demolished. In 1978 a new school was built in Pilzheide and the school on Lindenplatz was closed.

After the fall of the Wall , the barracks were closed and the entire site is now a solar park. The high school continues as a primary school and daycare center. On October 26, 2003, the municipality of Walddrehna merged with the districts of Wehnsdorf , Schwarzenburg and Neusorgefeld with the municipality of Heideblick.

Population development

Population development in Walddrehna since 1840
year	Residents		year	Residents		year	Residents		year	Residents
1840	228		1946	727		1998	1156		2010	671
1890	395		1993	1,278		1999	1,066
1900	514		1994	1,276		2000	1,062
1910	605		1995	1.317		2001	1,089
1925	554		1996	1,256		2002	1,057
1933	586		1997	1,213		2006	811

Culture and sights

Buildings

Walddrehna village church

• The village church of Walddrehnas was probably built as a stone church in the last quarter of the 12th century and rebuilt in the late Gothic style after a fire in the 15th century . The porch of the tower, which is open on three sides and makes the church unique, dates from this period. From the interior, the seated saint figure of "Jacobus Major" from the 15th century is worth mentioning.

Walddrehna manor, historical photo from around 1900 from Lindenplatz

• The manor house was built in the 2nd half of the 17th century as a simple single-storey plastered building with a crooked hip roof . In addition to the barn that still exists, there was a large, massive cowshed, a horse stable and a distillery on the estate .
• In 1875 the Wendischdrehna train station was opened. This was built as a two-storey clinker building with a half-timbered goods shed and rebuilt several times during its eventful history. The station has a toilet block and a brick stable building.

In the list of architectural monuments in Heideblick , two architectural monuments are listed for Walddrehna . In addition to the village church, there is a residential building (double room; Walddrehna Hauptstrasse 33) with paving to the house entrance and stable building as well as a house tree.

nature

The Gehrener and Walddrehnaer mountains are part of the Niederlausitzer Landrücken and form the most distinctive section here. During the cold time of the Saale in the so-called Wartha stage, the glaciers pushed the earth and debris into the south of Brandenburg. After the ice had thawed, these earth masses were deposited here and today form the Fläming ridge and then the Lower Lusatian border wall to the southeast.

Detail of the devil stone

In addition to the shaping of the landscape, it is also thanks to the Scandinavian glacier masses that the largest boulder in southern Brandenburg can be found very close to the Königsberg. The legendary Teufelsstein has a circumference of 12 meters, measures 4.5 m in length and 2.5 m in width.

literature

• Annegret Gehrmann (Hrsg.), Dirk Schumann (Hrsg.): Dorfkirchen in der Niederlausitz, History - Architecture - Monument Preservation , Lukas-Verlag, Berlin, 1st edition 2011, ISBN 978-3-86732-054-2 , p. 429

Web links

Commons : Walddrehna  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Homepage of the community Heideblick with information about Walddrehna
• Historical information about Walddrehna and the surrounding area

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Community and district directory of the state of Brandenburg. Land surveying and geographic base information Brandenburg (LGB), accessed on June 20, 2020.
2. ↑ Thietmar von Merseburg, Chronik, Book VI, Chapter 57: a Gerone dicta marchione = "named after Margrave Gero." Assumptions that the castle was built by Gero cannot be substantiated.
3. ↑ Widukind von Corvey, Sachsengeschichte Buch III, Chapter 67.
4. ↑ Ralf Gebuhr: Jarina and Liubusua - cultural-historical study on the archeology of prehistoric castles in the Elbe-Elster area. (= Studies on the Archeology of Europe, Vol. 6). Bonn 2007 pp. 34 f., 71-104.
5. ^ Higounet, Charles: Die deutsche Ostsiedlung im Mittelalter, Berlin 1986
6. ↑ Thomas Krause: Dorfkirche Walddrehna - The building history of a unique architectural monument , published in Dorfkirchen in der Niederlausitz, History - Architecture - Monument Preservation , by Annegret Gehrmann (ed.) And Dirk Schumann (ed.), Lukas-Verlag, Berlin, 1st edition 2011, ISBN 978-3-86732-054-2 , p. 429
7. ↑ Aurig, Rainer: Possibilities and limits of interdisciplinary research on old roads - mainly with examples from western Lower Lusatia, in: In the shadow of mighty neighbors - politics, economy and culture of Lower Lusatia between Bohemia, Saxony and Brandenburg-Prussia, Berlin 2006
8. ^ Lehmann, Rudolf: History of the Margrave Niederlausitz. The fate of an East German landscape and its people. Dresden 1937
9. ↑ Information board Walddrehna through the ages , set up on Lindenplatz, July 2020.
10. ↑ Information board Die Gräfliche Försterei , set up at the World War Memorial, July 2020.
11. ↑ Information board Das Gräfliche Gut , set up at the World War Memorial, July 2020.
12. ^ Ortschronik Walddrehna, unpublished manuscript
13. ^ Ortschronik Walddrehna, unpublished manuscript
14. ^ Historical municipality directory 2005 for Brandenburg Online as a PDF file