Wasserkuppe

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Wasserkuppe
View from Milseburg southeast to the Wasserkuppe

View from Milseburg southeast to the Wasserkuppe

height 950  m above sea level NHN
location near Gersfeld ; District of Fulda , Hessen , ( Germany )
Mountains Rhön ( High Rhön )
Dominance 60 km →  Großer Beerberg ( Thuringian Forest )
Notch height 585 m ↓  Römhild
Coordinates 50 ° 29'53 "  N , 9 ° 56'16"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 29'53 "  N , 9 ° 56'16"  E
Wasserkuppe (Hesse)
Wasserkuppe
rock Basalt , basalt tuff
Age of the rock Neogene
Development Landesstraße  3068 ( Hochrhönring ) up to the eastern highlands
particularities - highest mountain in Hesse and the Rhön low mountain range
- Fulda springs
- Wasserkuppe glider flying center
("cradle of gliding")
- Wasserkuppe radome (radar dome)

The Wasserkuppe in the Hessian district of Fulda with a peak in the Gersfeld area is 950  m above sea level. NHN the highest mountain in the Rhön and at the same time the highest elevation in Hesse.

The Fulda rises on the mountain, known nationwide as the “cradle of gliding ” ; another 30 streams have their origin here. From the summit area reaches the view on a clear day over the Rhön countryside away among others to choose High Meissner , Rothaar and Taunus .

etymology

On the origin of the name Wasserkuppe two exist onomastic perspectives. After the first of the name is not in spite of the source of wealth on the mountain on the word water , but to the Middle High German word wass attributed that a pasture designated space. Against this word origin, however, speaks that in Middle High German not the word wass exists, but the word wase with the current meaning lawn . At the same time, however, there is the word wazzer , which in today's meaning corresponds to the terms water , but also lake or river .

It is therefore more likely that the name Wasserkuppe is derived from the many source streams on the mountain. Accordingly, the mountain name, just like the Middle High German term, could have made a sound shift from wazzer to water . This is also supported by the fact that the Middle High German word wasse today has the meaning of the word sharpness . The Middle High German Wasserkupfe would have been neither a pasture nor a hill full of water, but a sharp knoll.

However, onomastics cannot provide definitive evidence for either of the two theses. Instead, a Middle High German text source would have to confirm the contemporary word meaning in one way or another.

geography

location

The Wasserkuppe is located in the Hessian Rhön Nature Park and the Rhön Biosphere Reserve . Its summit is located about 20 km east-southeast of the city of Fulda , 5.3 km north of Gersfeld , 4.7 km northeast of Poppenhausen and 5 km west of Wüstensachsen (capital of the municipality of Ehrenberg ) and belongs to the Gersfeld area (distances as the crow flies ). The localities located near the mountain are: Dietges and Brand in the north, Reulbach in the northeast, Obernhausen in the south, Tränkhof in the west, Sieblos in the west-northwest and Abtsroda in the northwest.

On the southern flank of the Wasserkuppe, the Fulda rises as the left source river of the Weser , on its southwest flank the Fulda tributary Lütter and on the western flank the Lütter tributary Haardt . The North Extension of the mountain is the abtsrodaer kuppe ( 904.8  m ) and its southwest extensions of the horse head ( 874.9  m ). The landscape leads to the south-southwest to the Eubeberg ( Eube ; approx.  820  m ) and to the east-northeast to the Schafstein ( 831.8  m ). In the east-southeast of the summit region there is a 904  m high knoll, which is sometimes referred to as the Kleine Wasserkuppe .

Natural allocation

The Wasserkuppe belongs in the natural spatial main unit group Osthessisches Bergland (No. 35) to the main unit Hohe Rhön (354), subunit Hochrhön (354.1), natural area Wasserkuppenrhön (354.10).

geology

The existence of the Wasserkuppe as a mountain is due to the relatively high resistance to erosion of the volcanic rock from which it is built. It is basalt and basaltic tuff that comes from a late Tertiary volcanic episode in what is now the Rhön region. The volcanic rock breaks down and covers sedimentary rocks of the Triassic ( red sandstone , limestone ), which on the lower slopes and the surrounding Wasserkuppe pending .

history

In the Celtic times there was a trade route across the Wasserkuppe from the Oppidum Milseburg to the Ortweg , which it met at the Black Moor . In the Middle Ages , the area between the Wasserkuppe and the Pferdskopf was populated.

Refuge (front with the corrugated iron roof) and refuge on the summit of the Wasserkuppe. Historic postcard from before 1906.

In the autumn of 1878, the Rhön Club, founded two years earlier, erected a building on the Wasserkuppe again. It was a simple, about 24 m² large weather shelter, roughly at the place where the radome is still today. For reasons of cost, a tin hut clad with wood was chosen. It was inaugurated on June 2nd, 1879. Between May and October it was run by an innkeeper from Poppenhausen . From the beginning it was visited by locals and the first tourists, so that the operator began building a shelter next to the hut as early as 1879, which was opened in 1880. In addition to the lounge, the kitchen and the cellar, the house had bedrooms with twenty beds. In 1884 a stable was added in which the operating family kept three cows, a few chickens and horses. Several times a week a maid fetched fresh groceries from Poppenhausen with a team . After the death of the first host in 1906, the business was continued first by his wife and then from 1910 by her son-in-law. In 1916 he built the "Berggasthof"

The Ursinus House from 1925 on the Wasserkuppe (picture from 2017)
1932 gliding competition

Darmstadt students began flight attempts from the Wasserkuppe in 1910 (see Akaflieg Darmstadt ). For this purpose, the glider was pulled by means of a rubber rope and was lifted by updrafts on the slope. Since then, an air camp has been built to accommodate the pilots and their comrades, which was built in the former district boundaries of the communities of Abtsroda , Obernhausen , Reulbach and Schachen . In the summer of 1920 the first Rhön gliding competition was held, in which 25 young pilots from Darmstadt and other places took part.

In 1922 Arthur Martens achieved a flight performance of one hour. In the same year he founded "Martens Aviation School". From the end of the 1920s, thermal flight was used.

The aviator memorial , a bronze eagle on a volcanic basalt chimney, has stood since 1923 . It commemorates the fallen aviators of the First World War and was built by the “ Ring of Aviators ”.

The Rhön-Rossitten-Gesellschaft erected a permanent building on the Wasserkuppe in 1925, in which the flight technology and aerodynamics departments of the company's research institute, the management and organization of the Rhön competitions and a weather station of the Prussian Meteorological Service were housed. In honor of the co-founder of the Rhön sailing competition, this building was named Ursinus House .

A tower had been erected on the mountain inn. In the lower part there was technology for weather measurements, while a raised tank for drinking water supply was housed above it . The elevated tank was dismantled again in 1941.

In 1933 the German Research Institute for Glider Flight emerged from the Rhön-Rossitten-Gesellschaft resident here . During the Nazi era , a military flight school was set up and most of the permanent buildings were erected.

In 1937, the Wasserkuppe area was incorporated into Obernhausen as part of the reallocation process at the time . Since the establishment of the air camp on the mountain, it was unclear to which municipality the Berg der Flieger, which is now also economically important for the Rhön region, thanks to tourism and the Rhön gliding competitions, belonged. Obernhausen has been part of the city of Gersfeld as a district since 1972 . From 1939 the weather station was used by the Wehrmacht as a radio measuring system. It was used as a direction finding device for the Air Force.

Whitsun 1944, 13 people died and 50 were injured in an air raid. The majority were teenagers, young model pilots and some members of the young people who had their tent camp on the Wasserkuppe in the area of ​​the Märchenwiese. 170 bombs from a US B 17 bomber squadron brought death. The adolescents were between 12 and 14 years old. At around 3:16 p.m., the Wasserkuppe became a target of opportunity for the bombing. The original destination was actually the Dessau Junkers factories . Due to poor visibility in the Dessau area , the bomb load was dropped on the return flight over the Wasserkuppe, which was also an alternative target as an airfield . The Hermann Göring aircraft hangar with around 40 gliders and five motorized aircraft parked there burned down completely after being hit.

Window of the Hall of Honor in the Lilienthal House

In 1945 the facilities were destroyed before the US Army arrived . On July 20, this confiscated the entire built-up area including the mountain inn with the tower, the Martens flying school, the realm gliding school and the gliding area and declared it a restricted military area . From 1945 to the end of 1946 the British Royal Air Force operated a telecommunications station on the Wasserkuppe and the US Army operated a radio relay station. From January 1, 1947, the US armed forces took over the mountain alone and installed a mobile radar station that same year.

During the Berlin blockade , the “ raisin bombers ” were directed from the Wasserkuppe. During the time of the division of Germany in the Cold War, the water space in the area of ​​the Warsaw Pact was monitored from the Wasserkuppe . The tower was then demolished on October 4, 1955 because it disrupted the operation of the radar facilities by the US Army. The striking steel construction was a widely visible identification symbol of the Wasserkuppe. The radar system was handed over to the Bundeswehr in 1978 . In 1998 their operation and thus the military use of the Wasserkuppe was stopped.

In the second half of the 20th century, the tourist development of the Wasserkuppe, which had started in 1878 with the construction of the refuge, was accelerated.

Protected areas

On the northern flank of the Wasserkuppe, directly below the Hochrhönring, is the nature reserve (NSG) Nordhang Wasserkuppe ( CDDA -Nr. 318864; designated 2001; 15.7  hectares ), to the east its landscape falls to the NSG Schafstein near Wüstensachsen (CDDA-Nr. 165354 ; 1997; 1.2361  km² ) and to the southeast to the NSG Rotes Moor (CDDA no. 7015; 1979; 312.24 km²); the northern foothills of the NSG Eube located on the Eubeberg extends to the south-southwest flank of the mountain (CDDA no. 318379; 2002; 1.3517 km²). Apart from a small part of the summit region, there are areas of the Hessische Rhön landscape conservation area on the mountain (CDDA no. 378477; 1967; 410.1096 km²). Areas of the fauna-flora-habitat area Hochrhön (FFH no. 5525-351; 48.0962 km²) are located on large parts of the Wasserkuppe . Parts of the Hessian Rhön bird sanctuary are located on the mountain (VSG no. 5425-401; 360.8013 km²).

Climate table

the Wasserkuppe
Climate diagram
J F. M. A. M. J J A. S. O N D.
 
 
82
 
-1
-5
 
 
64
 
-1
-5
 
 
79
 
2
-3
 
 
84
 
7th
1
 
 
97
 
12
5
 
 
115
 
15th
8th
 
 
109
 
17th
10
 
 
100
 
17th
10
 
 
82
 
14th
7th
 
 
81
 
9
4th
 
 
88
 
3
-1
 
 
104
 
0
-4
Temperature in ° C ,  precipitation in mm
Source: wetterkontor.de
Monthly average temperatures and rainfall for the Wasserkuppe
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Max. Temperature ( ° C ) −1.2 −0.5 2.4 7.0 12.3 15.1 16.9 16.9 13.6 9.2 3.1 0.0 O 7.9
Min. Temperature (° C) −5.3 −5.1 −2.6 0.5 4.9 8.0 9.7 9.8 7.2 3.7 −1.3 −4.3 O 2.1
Precipitation ( mm ) 82 64 79 84 97 115 109 100 82 81 88 104 Σ 1,085
Hours of sunshine ( h / d ) 1.7 2.6 3.4 4.8 6.4 6.3 6.8 6.2 4.7 3.9 1.8 1.7 O 4.2
Rainy days ( d ) 22nd 18th 15th 17th 16 16 17th 16 16 16 19th 19th Σ 207
Humidity ( % ) 91 88 87 80 77 80 79 80 85 86 91 91 O 84.6
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
−1.2
−5.3
−0.5
−5.1
2.4
−2.6
7.0
0.5
12.3
4.9
15.1
8.0
16.9
9.7
16.9
9.8
13.6
7.2
9.2
3.7
3.1
−1.3
0.0
−4.3
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
N
i
e
d
e
r
s
c
h
l
a
g 		82
64
79
84
97
115
109
100
82
81
88
104
  Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Source: wetterkontor.de

Facilities

Today there is a large gliding center on the Wasserkuppe , a flight and training center for hang-gliding , paragliding and snowkiting , a gliding museum, the Radom Wasserkuppe ( radome dome), the Rhön competence center, an information center on the Rhön Biosphere Reserve ( Groenhoff House), hotels, restaurants , a holiday village, a campsite , regional and souvenir shops, summer toboggan runs , ski lifts and a climbing forest as well as some smaller rides.

Aviation

The aviator memorial at the eroded volcanic vent
Wasserkuppe from a glider seen

The gliding center on the Wasserkuppe includes the oldest glider school in the world, a paragliding school, the German glider museum and the Wasserkuppe airfield for glider and motorized aircraft, which is used by the four resident glider clubs and the Wasserkuppe flying school. While on the eastern part of the airfield with the 670-meter asphalt track powered aircraft, motor gliders and gliders in aerotow start is the western part above the road, the so-called "World Sailor", the wind grid position of the glider. In addition, the mountain is also a popular launch site for hang-gliding , paragliding - and model aviator. The Abtsrodaer Kuppe is popular as a model airfield .

In keeping with the tradition of the mountain, numerous gliding events and model flying competitions take place on the Wasserkuppe every year.

Civil observatories

Radom and rapeseed oil block-type thermal power station in winter 2010

On the mountain there is a weather station of the German Weather Service (DWD) and a building of the German air traffic control for civil aviation.

Military use

Mountain top of the Wasserkuppe with radome ( radome )
Flight over the Wasserkuppe in 1996

In the Third Reich , “Martens Aviation School” was taken over by the Air Force . Among other things, she built the hall of honor and the barracks buildings, three of which had been used by the DJO as a youth education center until the closure in 2019 .

After the end of the Second World War and the associated division of Germany , the US Air Force and the French Armée de l'air used these buildings and built a radar station on the summit region at an altitude of 950  m in the late 1950s . In 1962 there were five radomes ( radome domes) with all-round search and height-search radars, these were demolished in 1963, 1989, 1993 and 1998. Due to the immediate location of the Wasserkuppe on the zonal and later inner-German border, on the Iron Curtain and the special feature of the area known as the Fulda Gap , this radar post of the US Air Force was of particular strategic importance for NATO . It was part of an early warning chain that stretched from the North Cape to Turkey. The military facility was gradually handed over from the US Army to the German Armed Forces from 1975 until 1978. The last remaining radome to this day, Radom Wasserkuppe , was erected in 1990 on the foundation of a dome that was demolished in 1989 and began a six-month trial in 2003.

Since the end of the Cold War , military use of the summit area is no longer necessary. In 1998 the Bundeswehr left the Wasserkuppe site, and the operation of the radar system and thus the military use of the mountain were discontinued. The land fell to the federal government, later to Hessen and in 2008 to the city of Gersfeld .

Civil use of the former military building

The buildings of the Bundeswehr became a youth education center. In 2008, demolition, dismantling and renaturation measures began on the Wasserkuppe. The Wasserkuppe radome , the air traffic control building and the combined heat and power plant for environmentally friendly local energy supply have been preserved. Against the demolition of the radome whose function spoke highly visible landmark , symbol of the Rhon and memorial of the Cold War and the division of Germany.

The Radom was officially handed over to the non-profit operating company Radom-Flug gGmbH (Radom-Flug) by the city of Gersfeld on June 27, 2009 . Since then, the striking building has been open to the civilian population. It is the highest building in the state of Hesse. A small exhibition in the stairwell shows the history of the listening station. The 60 m long tour around the base of the radome is used as a 360-degree viewing platform, including a view of the Rhön landscape ; it is about 10 m above the mountain top and thus at an altitude of around 960  m . The dome is 13.6 m high, has an inner equatorial diameter of 18.6 m and a volume of 2300 m³. It serves as a space for cultural events and exhibitions and since 2013 as a branch office for weddings of the Gersfeld registry office. The functional building on the Radom, in which the electronics for the radar device used to be, is used as a clubhouse for the two local hang-gliding and paragliding clubs. The renovation costs totaled around 215,000 euros; half was financed from public funds, the other half from the Radom-Flug, formed from the two hang-gliding and paragliding clubs on the Wasserkuppe, and the neighboring communities of Poppenhausen (Wasserkuppe) , Gersfeld and Ehrenberg . Annual operating costs of around 60,000 euros were estimated. If the radome has to be torn down, the Radom flight paid a deposit of 120,000 euros. Since 2009 it has been protected as a monument in the sense of the Hessian Monument Protection Act.

Rapeseed oil block-type thermal power station

A rapeseed oil- fed combined heat and power plant has been operated on the Wasserkuppe since 2003 . The maximum output is 410 kW electrical and 478 kW thermal. Most of the properties on the mountain are supplied with heat from the block-type thermal power station via a district heating network with around 960 meters of route. To secure the heat supply, a buffer storage tank with a storage volume of 13 m³ and a peak load boiler system with a maximum output of 1050 kW are integrated into the district heating network.

Winter sports

View from Neuwart below Ebersburg Castle east-northeast to the Wasserkuppe

The Wasserkuppe is a center of winter sports in the Rhön : The Wasserkuppe ski and toboggan arena is located on the northern slope . There are ski lifts and slopes of varying difficulty available. The high plateau is used for snowkiting and cross-country skiing .

Amateur radio

An amateur radio relay station for amateur radio television has been in operation on the mountain since March 2006 , with the callsign DB0TAN on the transmission frequency 1280 MHz. In April 2006, the 70 cm amateur radio relay DB0WAS (438.950 MHz) was put into operation. This relay is networked over the radio path with the amateur radio relay DB0WUR ( Wurmberg / Harz ), so that connections to a large part of the Federal Republic can be established via this relay.

The Wasserkuppe youth education center houses the club station of the Fulda radio amateurs (DARC eV - Fulda local association) in the former radio room. The club station has a shortwave station and VHF radios for the 2 m and 70 cm amateur radio bands. The club station bears the callsign DF0FU.

Opportunities for viewing

From the summit region of the Wasserkuppe, especially from the 360-degree viewing platform of the Radom Wasserkuppe , the view falls over the Rhön landscape. In good visibility conditions, it is sufficient in - counter clockwise considered - each among others with approximate straight line removal and height in meters (m) above mean sea level (MSL) - to:

To the south-south-west and south to almost south-east, the distant view is blocked by the upstream Rhön Mountains - such as Dammersfeldkuppe ( 927.9  m ), Kreuzberg ( 927.8  m ) and Heidelstein (925.7 m). In addition, other buildings and several antennas in the summit area interfere with the unobstructed panoramic view.

Traffic and walking

The federal highway 284 runs over the southeast flank of the Wasserkuppe between the federal highway 278 near Wüstensachsen in the northeast and Obernhausen in the southwest . From this road branches off north-east of Obernhausen towards the north-west of the Hochrhönring , which leads as part of the state road  3068 over the eastern highlands of the hilltop north-west to Abtsroda and then as L 3307 through Sieblos and Tränkhof to the south-west of Poppenhausen . From there, the ring runs  through Rodholz as part of district road 41 and passes the hamlet of Schwarzerden, the Gersfeld hamlets of Güntersberg and Sommerberg and the Gersfeld district of Schachen , before going through the hamlet of Brembach to Gersfeld. So you can drive around the mountain on the ring. Within the Hochrhönring, the K 160 runs west of the mountain from Abtsroda to Schwarzerden. For example, starting at these roads, the Wasserkuppe can be hiked on paths and trails. A common section of the European long-distance hiking trails E3 and E6 , as well as the Hochrhöner long-distance hiking trail , leads over the mountain . With its southwestern foothills horse head Wasserkuppe is by a geological trail connected.

Regional Rhönbahn trains run every hour from the ICE train station in Fulda to Gersfeld . It is 6 km from the train station to the summit of the Wasserkuppe.

Trivia

The asteroid (10242) Wasserkuppe is named after the Wasserkuppe .

See also

literature

  • Joachim Jenrich, Norbert Demel, Norman Zellmer: Radomes on the Wasserkuppe. Landmark and monument. Parzellers Buchverlag, Fulda 2014, ISBN 978-3-7900-0472-4 .
  • Joachim Jenrich: The Wasserkuppe. A mountain with a history. Parzeller Verlag, Fulda 2007, ISBN 978-3-7900-0389-5 .
  • Peter Riedel: Experienced Rhön history 1911–1926. Volume 1: Start in the Wind. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-87943-539-1 .
  • Peter Riedel: Experienced Rhön history 1927–1932. Volume 2: From slope wind to thermal. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-87943-981-8 .
  • Peter Riedel: Experienced Rhön history 1933–1939. Volume 3: Over sunny expanses. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-613-01047-X .

Web links

Commons : Wasserkuppe  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikivoyage: Wasserkuppe  - travel guide

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Map services of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation ( information )
  2. ↑ Dominances and VIPs ( Memento from October 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), on thehighrisepages.de
  3. ↑ a b c Beate Hennig, Small Middle High German Dictionary, Niemeyer 2001, p. 457.
  4. ↑ Medieval trade routes in the Rhön , accessed on April 20, 2016, at altwege.de
  5. ^ H. Wagner with the participation of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences - Commission for Bavarian State History and the University of Erlangen - Institute for Franconian State Research: Historical Atlas of Bavaria: Neustadt AD Saale (vol. 27 of Historical Atlas of Bavaria), Commission for Bavarian State History, 1982, p. 4
  6. ↑ Joachim Jenrich, Norbert Demel, Norman Zellmer: Radome on the Wasserkuppe. Landmarks and memorials , Parzellers Buchverlag, Fulda 2014, ISBN 978-3-7900-0472-4 , p. 4/5
  7. ^ The Wasserkuppe , accessed on September 15, 2013, on wasserkuppe.eu
  8. ↑ Werner Helmes : And they stayed in the air for days. In: Die Rhön (= Merian , Jg. 17 (1964), No. 4), pp. 53–54 and 95, here p. 54.
  9. ↑ Table Ursinus House in the series of references to the historical Gersfeld town of Gersfeld (Rhön) ; at the front of the building to the left of the stairs to the front door.
  10. ↑ a b c Joachim Jenrich, Norbert Demel, Norman Zellmer: Radome auf der Wasserkuppe , p. 6
  11. ↑ Main-Post , accessed on June 4, 2020
  12. ↑ Joachim Jenrich, Norbert Demel, Norman Zellmer: Radome auf der Wasserkuppe , p. 3
  13. ^ Norman Zellmer: Dome building becomes a cultural monument . Retrieved April 27, 2016 . , in Fuldaer Zeitung , on May 12, 2010
  14. ↑ Norman Zellmer: A Journey into the Cold War Era, on wasserkuppe.com, from September 1, 2012
  15. ↑ Norman Zellmer: Hesse's highest peak gets a profile ( memento from March 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), in Fuldaer Zeitung from July 15, 2011
  16. ↑ The Radom: The viewing platform ( memento from August 7, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ), on radom-wasserkuppe.de
  17. ↑ Das Radom: Die Technik ( Memento from August 7, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ), on radom-wasserkuppe.de
  18. ↑ Joachim Jenrich, Norbert Demel, Norman Zellmer: Radome on the Wasserkuppe. Landmarks and memorials , Parzellers Buchverlag, Fulda 2014, ISBN 978-3-7900-0472-4 , p. 31/32
  19. ↑ Operator homepage DB0WAS ( Memento from December 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), on db0was.de
  20. ↑ From the Wasserkuppe to the Palatinate - 174 km of distant view (labeling of visual targets can be activated), on panorama-photo.net
  21. ↑ Winter distant view on the Wasserkuppe (labeling of visual targets can be activated), on panorama-photo.net
  22. ↑ Calculated 360 ° panorama ( U. Deuschle ; information ) from the Wasserkuppe