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. The border between

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

and

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making it th ...

runs through the woods, of which about three quarters is on Lower Saxon terrain. The Lappwald is part of the

Elm-Lappwald Nature Park The Elm-Lappwald Nature Park (german: Naturpark Elm-Lappwald) 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 kno ...

Location

The Lappwald runs from north-west to south-east parallel to the

Elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North ...

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 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.Hans-Ehrhard Müller: ''Helmstedt - die Geschichte einer deutschen Stadt'', 2. Aufl. 2004, S. 184 There is no clear derivation for the name "Lappwald". The most likely theory is to do with the

hunting Hunting is the human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products ( fur/ hide, bone/tusks, horn/antler, ...

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 A watchtower or watch tower 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 ...

s from the 13th century which are referred to as the 1st and 2nd Walbeck Watchtowers (''Walbecker Warte''). Another well-preserved

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

watchtower is located immediately next to the B 1 federal road to

Magdeburg Magdeburg (; nds, label=Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdebu ...

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 due to the sharply downfaulted terrain it is surrounded by. In the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

, a period of some 71 million years, the sea washed chalk, marls and sands in several flood phases into the Helmstedt and

Schöppenstedt Schöppenstedt is a small town in the district of Wolfenbüttel, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the '' Samtgemeinde'' ("collective municipality") of Elm-Asse. Geography It is situated southwest of the Elm and Asse hi ...

hollow and thus covered the underlying rock. Further flooding by the sea in the succeeding

Tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

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

brown coal Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible, sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35%, and is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat ...

deposits.

References

External links

Official tourism website

Lappwald Nature Reserve
{{Authority control Forests and woodlands of Lower Saxony Hill ranges of Lower Saxony