Lappwald
Encyclopedia
The Lappwald is a heavily wooded range of hills, 20 km long and up to 5 km wide, in central Germany. It stretches northwards from the town of Helmstedt
Helmstedt
Helmstedt is a city located at the eastern edge of the German state of Lower Saxony. It is the capital of the District of Helmstedt. Helmstedt has 26,000 inhabitants . In former times the city was also called Helmstädt....

. The border between Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...

 and Saxony-Anhalt
Saxony-Anhalt
Saxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...

 runs through the woods, of which about three quarters is on Lower Saxon terrain. The Lappwald is part of the Elm-Lappwald Nature Park
Elm-Lappwald Nature Park
The Elm-Lappwald Nature Park is a nature park in southwest Lower Saxony, east of Brunswick in central Germany. It is dominated by the forested hill ranges of the Elm, Lappwald and Dorm as well as the region known as the Helmstedt Bowl ....

.

Location

The Lappwald runs from north-west to south-east parallel to the Elm hills, which lie about 10 km further west. The forests of the Lappwald are almost entirely uninhabited. The only settlements are the Helmstedt hamlet of Bad Helmstedt and the Harbke
Harbke
Harbke is a municipality in the Börde district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany....

 sector of Autobahn in the south, and the installations of the old airbase of Mariental in the north.

History

The first records describe the Lappwald as the Lapvualt in the year 1147. There is no clear derivation for the name "Lappwald". The most likely theory is to do with the hunting
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...

 term Einlappens. The Lappwald was a border forest for many centuries between the Brunswick and Prussian territories. Numerous smugglers and other criminals, including the well-known figure of "Robber Captain Rose" (Räuberhauptmann Rose, real name: Carl Wallmann) used the forest's border situation to their advantage. In the 20th century the Inner German Border divided the Lappwald, following the old Brunswick-Prussian boundary.

In the Lappwald northeast of Helmstedt are the remains of a defensive ditch forming part of the old dyke to Walbeck. The structures that have survived include two watchtower
Watchtower
A watchtower is a type of fortification used in many parts of the world. It differs from a regular tower in that its primary use is military, and from a turret in that it is usually a freestanding structure. Its main purpose is to provide a high, safe place from which a sentinel or guard may...

s from the 13th century which are referred to as the 1st and 2nd Walbeck Watchtowers (Walbecker Warte). Another well-preserved medieval watchtower is located immediately next to the B 1
Bundesstraße 1
The Bundesstraße 1 or B1 is a German federal highway running in an east-west direction from the Dutch border near Aachen to the Polish border at Küstrin-Kietz on the Oder River.-Route description:...

 federal road to Magdeburg
Magdeburg
Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....

 on the edge of the Lappwald.

Geology

From a geological point of view, the Lappwald, which reaches a height of 211 m on the Heidberg, is a hollow, that only appears like a raised horst
Horst
Horst is a Germanic word meaning "eagle's nest" and "man from the forest" . It may refer to:-Given name:* Horst * Horst Buchholz, a German actor* Horst Bulau, a Canadian ski jumper...

 due to the sharply downfaulted terrain it is surrounded by. In the Cretaceous
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...

, a period of some 71 million years, the sea washed chalk, marls and sands in several flood phases into the Helmstedt and Schöppenstedt
Schöppenstedt
Schöppenstedt is a town in the district of Wolfenbüttel, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated southwest of the Elm, approx. 17 km east of Wolfenbüttel, and 21 km southeast of Braunschweig...

 hollow and thus covered the underlying rock. Further flooding by the sea in the succeeding Tertiary
Tertiary
The Tertiary is a deprecated term for a geologic period 65 million to 2.6 million years ago. The Tertiary covered the time span between the superseded Secondary period and the Quaternary...

 era created large areas of bog in the Helmstedt Basin that were transformed under sub-tropical climatic conditions into massive brown coal deposits.

External links

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