Viktorshöhe

Viktorshöhe
Viktorshöhe
	Wooden observation tower before its collapse
Highest point
Elevation	581.5 m (1,908 ft) [1]
Coordinates	51°41′09″N11°04′57″E / 51.68583°N 11.0825°E Coordinates: 51°41′09″N11°04′57″E / 51.68583°N 11.0825°E
Geography
	Viktorshöhe Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
Parent range	Harz Mountains

Last updated April 15, 2019

The Viktorshöhe is a hill, 581.5 metres high,^[1] in the Harz mountains of central Germany. It lies on the Ramberg massif within the boundaries of Gernrode, a part of Quedlinburg, and about 3 kilometres northeast of Friedrichsbrunn.

Central Germany (Zentraldeutschland/Mitteldeutschland), in geography, describes the areas surrounding the geographical centre of Germany.

The Ramberg, also called the Ramberg Massif, is a granite massif, about 30 square kilometres in area, in the eastern part of the Harz Mountains of central Germany. It is located in the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt and lies southwest of Quedlinburg, between Friedrichsbrunn, Gernrode, Harzgerode and Thale. The Ramberg massif has a number of summits, the highest of which is the Viktorshöhe at 582 m above sea level (NN).

Gernrode is a historic town and former municipality in the Harz District, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 January 2014, it has been part of Quedlinburg. It was the seat of the former Verwaltungsgemeinschaft of Gernrode/Harz.

History

The first hunting lodge on the Viktorshöhe had been built next to a small well house at the behest of Prince Victor Frederick in 1750.^[2] And the first observation tower here also appeared as early as the 18th century.^[3] In 1892 a building on the Viktorshöhe had become a popular pub catering for day trippers. In 1897 a 20-metre-high tower was built, made from oak logs, from which there were views as far as the Kyffhäuser.^[4] In 1927 the forestry authority, who had the right to sell wine and beer from their lodge, was disbanded. The last foresters were recorded as Messrs. Jacobi and Sachtler. The property, however, continued to be managed and extended.^[5]

Well house building constructed around a water well

A well house is a building erected in Palestine in the 19th century around water wells, especially near orange groves.

The Kyffhäuser, sometimes also referred to as Kyffhäusergebirge, is a hill range in Central Germany, located on the border of the state of Thuringia with Saxony-Anhalt, southeast of the Harz mountains. It reaches its highest point at the Kulpenberg with an elevation of 473.4 metres (1,553 ft). The range is the site of medieval Kyffhausen Castle and the 19th century Kyffhäuser Monument; it has significance in German traditional mythology as the legendary resting place of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

In 1946 the Anhalt governor, Heinrich Deist senior, stayed at the Viktorshöhe Guest House. He was witness to a night-time raid on the pub on 14 July 1946 perpetrated by three Soviet soldiers. The owner of the Viktorshöhe received stab wounds to his back and was hit with a revolver. Six hundred Reichsmarks were stolen, together with a radio and clothing. Even the guests were robbed.^[6] Until 1958, Saalmann was the publican of the Viktorshöhe.^[5] In 1959 the Viktorshöhe became a works holiday home and was close to the public as a result.^[7]

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. Nominally a union of multiple national Soviet republics, its government and economy were highly centralized. The country was a one-party state, governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital in its largest republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Other major urban centres were Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Alma-Ata, and Novosibirsk. It spanned over 10,000 kilometres east to west across 11 time zones, and over 7,200 kilometres north to south. It had five climate zones: tundra, taiga, steppes, desert and mountains.

The Reichsmark was the currency in Germany from 1924 until 20 June 1948 in West Germany, where it was replaced with the Deutsche Mark, and until 23 June in East Germany when it was replaced by the East German mark. The Reichsmark was subdivided into 100 Reichspfennig. The Mark is an ancient Germanic weight measure, traditionally a half pound, later used for several coins; whereas Reich, that is realm in English, comes from the official name for the German nation state from 1871 to 1945, Deutsches Reich.

At the end of the 1970s the building complex became a company holiday home for the Draht- und Seilwerke Rothenburg (Rothenburg Wire and Cable Company). The next-door restaurant was a favourite walking and excursion halt. In 1990 the guest house was closed..^[3] The buildings on the Viktorshöhe became empty during the 1990s and are gradually falling into ruin. The remaining furniture lies scattered about the area and gives an impression of destruction and neglect, reminiscent of war.

Near the summit a wooden tower stood until it collapsed in November 2012, which had been used as a fire lookout tower and site for aerials of various radio services. In the 1980s, because of its good location, the tower was used by radio hams of the then Halle district contest team, including the amateur ham callsign "Y34H", used by numerous international amateur radio competitions. This tower was not built as a viewing tower, but as the site for a raised trigonometric sign above a trig point (TP) of the first order by the state survey and, for that reason, used as an observation tower. As a result of advances in technology this trig sign - like others in the other federal states - lost its significance.

Fire lookout tower building to house a person who watches for wildfires

A fire lookout tower, fire tower or lookout tower, provides housing and protection for a person known as a "fire lookout" whose duty it is to search for wildfires in the wilderness. The fire lookout tower is a small building, usually located on the summit of a mountain or other high vantage point, in order to maximize the viewing distance and range, known as view shed. From this vantage point the fire lookout can see smoke that may develop, determine the location by using a device known as an Osborne Fire Finder, and call fire suppression personnel to the fire. Lookouts also report weather changes and plot the location of lightning strikes during storms. The location of the strike is monitored for a period of days after in case of ignition.

Surrounding area

In the vicinity of the Viktorshöhe there are several tourist attractions: the Große Teufelsmühle, the Bergrat Müller Teich (Teich = pond), the Bear Monument, the ruined castle of Erichsberg, the Bremer Teich campsite and the Erichburger Teich.

The Große Teufelsmühle is a natural monument on the Viktorshöhe near Friedrichsbrunn in the Harz Mountains of central Germany. The name means "Great Devil's Mill". It is a tor, a granite rock formation that displays typical spheroidal or "mattress" weathering. The Große Teufelsmühle is a protected monument. Next to it is a checkpoint in the Harzer Wandernadel hiking system. In the vicinity is another rock formation, the Kleine Teufelsmühle.

The Bear Monument is a monument to bears in the Harz mountains of central Germany. It stands by a forest track and walking trail in woods not far from the Bremer Teich and the Viktorshöhe hill and marks the spot where the last bear was killed in 1696 in the Anhalt Forest. The monument was erected around 1900. It is a glacial erratic boulder on which a cast-iron memorial plate with an inscription has been affixed. Next to the bear monument is a checkpoint which is part of the Harzer Wandernadel network of hiking trails.

The Bremer Teich is an historic reservoir that lies south of the two villages of Bad Suderode and Gernrode in the Harz Mountains of Germany, and is used as a recreation area. It impounds the Bremer Graben, an artificial channel fed by water from the Bode and the Saale. The water reservoir was built in the 18th century in the Lower Harz (Saxony-Anhalt). It has an area of ca. 4 ha. The pond is located on the Romanesque Road and the North Harz Cycleway.

Related Research Articles

The Selke Valley Railway (Selketalbahn), Gernrode-Harzgerode Railway and the Anhalt Harz Railway were different names for the metre gauge railway in the Lower Harz, Germany, originally owned by the Gernrode-Harzgerode Railway Company.

An observation tower is a structure used to view events from a long distance and to create a full 360 degree range of vision to conduct the long distance observations. They are usually at least 20 metres (66 ft) tall and made from stone, iron, and wood. Many modern towers are also used as TV towers, restaurants, or churches. The towers first appeared in Germany at the end of the 18th century, and their numbers steadily increased, especially after the invention of the lift.

Lady Isle is a small, uninhabited island, in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland. It was once home to a chapel dedicated to Saint Mary. The island features a lighthouse and a freshwater spring.

The term Kaiserpfalz or Königspfalz refers to a number of castles and palaces across the Holy Roman Empire that served as temporary, secondary seats of power for the Holy Roman Emperor in the Early and High Middle Ages. The term was also used more rarely for a bishop who, as a territorial lord (Landesherr), had to provide the king and his entourage with board and lodging, a duty referred to as Gastungspflicht.

Halle Radio Tower is the tallest free-standing lattice tower exclusively used for radiotechnical purposes in Germany. It was built in 2005 by Steffens & Nölle GmbH for the Deutsche Telekom AG in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt as DVB-T broadcasting tower. It is 150 metres tall.

At 971 m above sea level (NN) the Wurmberg is the second highest mountain in the Harz and the highest in Lower Saxony (Germany).

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The Frose–Quedlinburg railway, also called the Balkan ("Balkans") locally, was a standard gauge branch line on the northern rim of the Harz Mountains in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The line runs from Frose via Gernrode to Quedlinburg. It was closed in 2004. The Gernrode–Quedlinburg section was subsequently converted by the Harz Narrow Gauge Railway Company to metre gauge. Since 26 June 2006 the line has been re-opened as part of the Selke Valley Railway.

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References

1 2 Map services of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation
↑ Kellermann and Kellermann (2013), p. 38
1 2 Kellermann and Kellermann (2013), p. 73
↑ Kellermann and Kellermann (2013), p. 55
1 2 Kellermann and Kellermann (2013), p. 61
↑ Wilfried Lübeck: Die Fälle häufen sich – Übergriffe sowjetischer Soldaten in Sachsen-Anhalt 1945–1947, Mitteldeutscher Verlag Halle (Saale), ISBN 978-3-89812-873-5, p. 146
↑ Kellermann and Kellermann (2013), p. 68

Bibliography

Rosemarie und Gerhard Kellermann (2013), Chronik der Stadt Gernrode, Gernroder Kulturverein Andreas Popperodt e. V.

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[DE_BFN-Karten-1] 1 2 Map services of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation

[RGKellermann38-2] Kellermann and Kellermann (2013), p. 38

[RGKellermann73-3] 1 2 Kellermann and Kellermann (2013), p. 73

[RGKellermann55-4] Kellermann and Kellermann (2013), p. 55

[RGKellermann61-5] 1 2 Kellermann and Kellermann (2013), p. 61

[WLübeck-6] Wilfried Lübeck: Die Fälle häufen sich – Übergriffe sowjetischer Soldaten in Sachsen-Anhalt 1945–1947, Mitteldeutscher Verlag Halle (Saale), ISBN 978-3-89812-873-5, p. 146

[RGKellermann68-7] Kellermann and Kellermann (2013), p. 68