Weseler Glacis

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Aerial view of Wesel city center and the surrounding districts; especially north and east glacis (facing the city center) can be seen.

The Weseler Glacis comprises several forest areas on the edge of the inner city of Wesel on the Lower Rhine . Originally, according to the actual meaning of a glacis , it was an area outside the city walls that surrounded the fortress town of Wesel, free of buildings and trees. After the town had been de-fortified in the 1880s , the forest areas emerged. As can be easily understood from the shapes in the city map, the site of the former upstream bastions was also included in some places (northern glacis on both sides of Caspar-Baur-Straße and remnants of eastern glacis).

location

The glacis can be divided into north, east, west and Lippeglacis, after which the adjacent streets are named (e.g. Am Nordglacis ). It runs as a green belt in the north, west and south around the inner city center and is crossed by a network of paths for pedestrians and cyclists. It is just outside of today's ring roads, which were built on the former course of the fortress walls. On the eastern edge of the city center, there is no wooded area for a longer section. The Ostglacis bears the corresponding name, but ends at the confluence of the federal highway 58 in the ring road around the city. There is therefore no forest area in the area around Wesel train station and the railway systems located there. Such an area is also missing in the south-west near the urban Rhine port of Wesel . The forest areas on the west, north and east glacis almost merge and are only interrupted by a few roads. The Lippeglacis, on the other hand, is not connected to the other areas and is located south of federal highway 8 and close to the Lippe that gives it its name . Only small sections of the glacis were built on, but the forest partially borders directly on surrounding built-up land.

A strip of forest in the Wesel district of Schepersfeld is also known colloquially as "Glacis".

history

Under Prussian rule Wesel served as a fortress town, which restricted the expansion and development of the town. For surrounding areas such as today's Schepersfeld, there were considerable restrictions on the construction of buildings and the areas directly in front of the fortress walls were to be kept completely free of buildings and trees as a glacis. This should make the area in front of the walls clearly visible in the event of an attack. In 1889, the city acquired almost the entire glacis as part of the demolition that had started three years earlier. A year later, the construction of the ring roads began on the site of the former fortress walls and the forest was created in the glacis. At the beginning of the First World War , felling work was carried out in the glacis in August 1914 in order to restore a clear field of fire in the event of an attack on the city. Extensive clearing of the forest was not implemented, however, as the responsibility for such measures was transferred to the local administration, which did not continue the project. Today's ring roads are equipped with a partially interrupted central avenue , which stands between both directions and consists mainly of maple-leaved plane trees and linden trees . With the cemetery on Caspar-Baur-Straße and the Jewish cemetery on Ostglacis , two cemeteries were created on the edge of the glacis.

nature

The forest areas are inhabited by 40 species of birds and are a potential summer home for bats , which in winter live in a casemate below the Heubergpark , among other places . By removing dead wood, which has to be carried out for the safety of passers-by, various bird species lose potential hiding places, but are artificially replaced by birdhouses and nesting boxes placed in the forest. In order to avoid excessive expansion of the tree population, a municipal company occasionally carries out felling work.

In the forest areas there were at times two playgrounds and an exercise and nature trail . In 2013, a 520 square meter forest playground was created in the Glacis for a nearby kindergarten.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ City center map in the city guide Wesel 1998, MAP Verlagsgesellschaft Mülheim / Ruhr
  2. ↑ a b c Horst Schroeder: 125 years ago: Wesel loses its narrowing as a fortress town . In: Mitteilungen der Historischen Vereinigung Wesel eV, issue 152, April 2015, accessed on September 9, 2016, p. 5 (pdf; 876 kB).
  3. ↑ streets in Wesel - Letter A . Website of the city of Wesel, accessed on September 9, 2016.
  4. ↑ a b Entry on Weseler Glacis in the " KuLaDig " database of the Rhineland Regional Association , accessed on August 1, 2017.
  5. ↑ a b c Petra Herzog: A plan for the woods in the Glacis . Neue Ruhr Zeitung , April 9, 2015, accessed on September 9, 2016.
  6. ^ Fritz Schubert: Wesel: A glacis is the opposite of forest . Rheinische Post , April 2, 2016, accessed on September 9, 2016.
  7. ↑ Schepersfeld . Website of the city of Wesel, accessed on September 9, 2016.
  8. ↑ Wanderings of a gable frieze . Website of the city of Wesel, accessed on September 9, 2016.
  9. ↑ Jutta Prieur (Ed.): History of the City of Wesel , Volume 2. Schwann in Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf, 1991, ISBN 3-491-34229-5 , p. 215.
  10. ^ Rudolf Haffner: Wesel: Wesel - the constricted city . Rheinische Post , November 30, 2009, accessed on September 9, 2016.
  11. ↑ Werner Köhler: Rooks against hunger: Wesel in the First World War . In: Historical Association Wesel eV (Hrsg.): Wesel and the lower Lower Rhine: Contributions to the history of the Rhine . Wesel 2015, ISBN 978-3-929605-38-9 , p. 96f. (pdf; 13.6 MB).
  12. ↑ Entry on Mittelallee am Weseler Ring in the database " KuLaDig " of the Rhineland Regional Association , accessed on August 1, 2017.
  13. ^ Entry by Franz-Josef Knöchel on the Jewish cemetery on the Ostglacis in the " KuLaDig " database of the Rhineland Regional Association , accessed on August 1, 2017.
  14. ↑ Fritz Schubert: Wesel: In the glacis the trees fight for light . Rheinische Post , April 17, 2015, accessed on September 9, 2016.
  15. ↑ Petra Herzog: A forest in a forest . Neue Ruhr Zeitung , April 25, 2013, accessed on September 9, 2016.

Coordinates: 51 ° 39 ′ 42.5 "  N , 6 ° 36 ′ 56.2"  E