The Reinhardswald () is a range of hills up to and covering an area of over 200 km²
in the

Weser Uplands The Weser Uplands (German: ''Weserbergland'', ) is a hill region in Germany, between Hannoversch Münden and Porta Westfalica, along the river Weser. The area reaches into three states, Lower Saxony, Hesse, and North Rhine-Westphalia. Important ...

in the district of

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

(

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

). Of this, 183 km² are part of the

unincorporated area An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

known as ''Gutsbezirk Reinhardswald''. The area is known for its

myth Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

s and

legend A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess certain qualities that give the ...

s, such as

Grimms' Fairy Tales ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'', originally known as the ''Children's and Household Tales'' (, , commonly abbreviated as ''KHM''), is a German collection of fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, Jacob Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Wilhelm, first publish ...

, and the "

Sleeping Beauty "Sleeping Beauty" (, or ''The Beauty Sleeping in the Wood''; , or ''Little Briar Rose''), also titled in English as ''The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods'', is a fairy tale about a princess curse, cursed by an evil fairy to suspended animation in fi ...

" castle of

Sababurg The Sababurg, first called the Zappenburg, then Zapfenburg and today, after the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Sleeping Beauty Castle (), is the ruin of a hill castle in the legendary Reinhardswald, a forested upland that runs through the North H ...

is internationally known.

Geography

The Reinhardswald is located in the north of North Hesse between

and

Bad Karlshafen Bad Karlshafen () is a baroque, thermal salt spa town in the Kassel (district), district of Kassel, in Hesse, Germany. It has 2300 inhabitants in the main ward of Bad Karlshafen, and a further 1900 in the medieval village of Helmarshausen. It is s ...

, Hann. Münden and

Hofgeismar Hofgeismar () is a town in the district of Kassel, in northern Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km north of Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Ge ...

. In the north and east this

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with woody plants (trees and shrubs), or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunli ...

area runs up against the

Weser The Weser () is a river of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany. It begins at Hannoversch Münden through the confluence of the Werra and Fulda. It passes through the Hanseatic city of Bremen. Its mouth is further north against the ports o ...

and, in the southeast and south against the

Fulda Fulda () (historically in English called Fuld) is a city in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the river Fulda and is the administrative seat of the Fulda district (''Kreis''). In 1990, the city hosted the 30th Hessentag state festival. Histor ...

; both rivers form locally the border with

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

. In the west it borders partly on the Esse and, in the northwest, on the

Diemel The Diemel () is a river in Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is a western and orographically left tributary of the Weser. It is the first, and therefore southernmost, of the larger Weser tributaries after its formation by the confluen ...

. To the north of the Reinhardswald, on the far side of the Weser, is the Solling, to the northeast is the Kiffing and to the east, the Bramwald. To the southeast, beyond the Fulda, is the

Kaufungen Forest The Kaufungen Forest () is a range of steep, wooded hills straddling the border between the states of Hesse and Lower Saxony in central Germany. It takes its name from the town Kaufungen. The hills lie in the fork of the Rivers Fulda River, Fulda ...

; not far away to the southwest of the Reinhardswald the Habichtswald looks down on the

Basin.

Description

The Reinhardswald comprises a very extensive, gently folded, extremely thickly forested and almost uninhabited

Bunter sandstone The Buntsandstein (German for ''coloured'' or ''colourful sandstone'') or Bunter sandstone is a lithostratigraphic and allostratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) in the subsurface of large parts of west and central Europe. The Buntsands ...

plateau, which rises from about 200 m up to a maximum and which tilts gently towards the west. Its two highest hills, both of which are heavily wooded, are called the Staufenberg (472.2 m) and Gahrenberg (472.1 m). At over 200 km² in area the Reinhardswald is one of the largest forests and most sparsely populated regions in Germany; within Hesse it is the largest contiguous area of forest.

Beech Beech (genus ''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of Mesophyte, mesophytic forests) Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted ...

and

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

, in particular, thrive here and there are extensive areas of

wood pasture Silvopasture (''silva'' is forest in Latin) is the practice of integrating trees, forage, and the grazing of domesticated animals in a mutually beneficial way. It utilizes the principles of managed grazing, and it is one of several distinct form ...

(''Hutewald''). Only a few country roads cross the Reinhardswald. For instance, to cross the hills in a north-south direction from

Helmarshausen Helmarshausen is a village and a part (''Stadtteil'') of the town of Bad Karlshafen in Hesse, central Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North ...

via to

Immenhausen Immenhausen () is a town in the district of Kassel, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 12 km north of Kassel on the German Timber-Frame Road. The town has 7,098 inhabitants as of July 2020, including the northern village of Mariendorf and east ...

-Holzhausen by bicycle or car, requires a drive of about 38 km on mostly empty, small and often very narrow roads that, especially in the south of the forest, are often arrow straight. And apart from Gottsbüren there are no settlements until the southern edge of the Reinhardswald near Holzhausen. The road through the north of the forest is a designated tourist route called the " Weser Renaissance Road" and the road through the southern part of the area is part of the designated tourist route ''Deutsche Märchenstrasse'' (" German Fairy Tale Route") (the "Sleeping Beauty Route").

History

General

The Reinhardswald was once an imperial forest. The northern end between the Weser and the Diemel was gifted by the Emperor,

Henry II Henry II may refer to: Kings * Saint Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor (972–1024), crowned King of Germany in 1002, of Italy in 1004 and Emperor in 1014 *Henry II of England (1133–89), reigned from 1154 *Henry II of Jerusalem and Cyprus (1271–1 ...

, to

Helmarshausen Abbey Helmarshausen Abbey () was a Benedictine Order, Benedictine monastery situated in the small town of Helmarshausen, now part of Bad Karlshafen in Hesse, Germany. History The abbey was founded here near the Diemel, River Diemel in 997 by the noble ...

; the southern portion went to the

Bishopric of Paderborn The Prince-Bishopric of Paderborn () was an ecclesiastical principality (Hochstift) of the Holy Roman Empire from 1281 to 1802. History The Diocese of Paderborn was founded in 799 by Pope Leo III. In the early years it was subordinated to t ...

. Landgrave Henry of Hesse purchased the forest back in 1306 and pledged it in 1355 to Hesse, which then retained possession of the forest permanently and whose princes, especially Philip the Magnanimous used it as a favourite stag-hunting ground.

Mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

was carried out in and around the Reinhardswald for centuries. Evidence of

brown coal Lignite (derived from Latin ''lignum'' meaning 'wood'), often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, Combustion, combustible sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35% and is considered ...

mining at Gahrenberg (locally from 1842 to 1970 in the

underground mine Mining is the extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or feasibly created artificially in a la ...

) may be found as early as the time of Landgrave

William IV William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded hi ...

in 1575. The early mining of

alum An alum () is a type of chemical compound, usually a hydrated double salt, double sulfate salt (chemistry), salt of aluminium with the general chemical formula, formula , such that is a valence (chemistry), monovalent cation such as potassium ...

ore and

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

sand, which was subsequently extracted in the

glassworks Glass production involves two main methods – the float glass process that produces sheet glass, and glassblowing that produces bottles and other containers. It has been done in a variety of ways during the history of glass. Glass container p ...

at Hann. Münden, is recorded. Around 1592 a

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

was documented in

-Holzhausen . From the period between 1611 and 1666 other evidence of mining was recorded. Extensive

s and old farmyards and

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

s bear witness to the agricultural tradition of the Reinhardswald.

Myths

There are several

s about the origin of the Reinhardswald, of which the most famous are described here: Version 1: Count Reinhard was a gambler and drinker. One night he was playing with the Bishop of Paderborn. After he had lost all his money, he wagered all his property on a game. He begged for grace and the bishop promised him a harvest wherever he sowed acorns. This popular version is also performed by a theatre group. Version 2: Count Reinhard ruled the mighty forest, densely occupied by villages, but was sentenced to death for extortion and robbery. At his urgent entreaty he was allowed once more before his execution to cultivate the pastures and harvest them. But craftily, after destroying the villages, he sowed the farmers' fields with acorns, which ripened long after he was dead. Thus the Reinhardswald was born. Eichenriese Sababurg

Places of interest

The best known visitor destination in the Reinhardswald is the so-called "Sleeping Beauty" castle of

with its wildlife park. In addition the nature reserve of the ancient forest of Sababurg (''Urwald Sababurg''), which is located between Sababurg Castle and Hofgeismar- Beberbeck recalls a long-forgotten time and a landscape of virgin forest.

Controversy over wind power development

In early 2022, the

regional council approved a plan to build 18 wind turbines, each 241 meters high, in the Reinhardswald, creating the largest wind farm in Hesse. Promoters claim to be placing the turbines in spots where the forest is already cleared due to damage by storms, summer droughts, and the

bark beetle A bark beetle is the common name for the subfamily of beetles Scolytinae. Previously, this was considered a distinct family (Scolytidae), but is now understood to be a specialized clade of the "true weevil" family (Curculionidae). Although th ...

. The plan is opposed by citizen's groups, partly on grounds that the turbines would endanger birds and bats and would harm tourism.

Hills

The hills and elevations within the Reinhardswald and its foothills include (heights in metres above

Normalnull ("standard zero") or (short N. N. or NN) is an outdated official vertical datum used in Germany. Elevations using this reference system were to be marked (“meters above standard zero”). has been replaced by (NHN). History In 187 ...

Rivers and streams

The

flows past just to the east of the Reinhardswald in a deeply incised valley. To the southeast is the equally deep valley of the

; to the west the little Esse and, to the northeast, the

. The Holzape is the longest

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a strea ...

within the uplands themselves, and is fed by numerous other brooks including the Holzkape and

Lempe The Lempe is a river of Hesse, Germany. The 16.3 km long Lempe is a southeastern and orographically right tributary of the Esse, into which it flows in Hofgeismar. See also *List of rivers of Hesse This is a list of rivers of Hesse, Germ ...

. There are also many

pond A pond is a small, still, land-based body of water formed by pooling inside a depression (geology), depression, either naturally or artificiality, artificially. A pond is smaller than a lake and there are no official criteria distinguishing ...

s and pools.

Towns and villages

These places are located within the Reinhardswald: * Gottsbüren * Hofgeismar- Beberbeck (Gehöft-Ansiedelung) The following towns and villages lie on the edge of the Reinhardswald: * in the north:

* in the east Oberweser and Reinhardshagen * in the southeast Hann. Münden * in the west Hombressen * in the southwest

Somewhat further away from the Reinhardswald are: * in the west

Grebenstein Grebenstein (; ) is a town in the district of Kassel, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 16 km northwest of Kassel on the German Timber-Frame Road. In 1762 it was the scene of a skirmish between British and French troops during the Seven Year ...

and Trendelburg * in the south

Literature

* Augustins Reisehandbücher (Nr. 4) ''Der Reinhardswald und Bramwald nebst angrenzenden Gebieten''. Kassel (o.J., c. 1920) * Alfred Bonnemann: ''Der Reinhardswald''. Verlag der Weserbuchhandlung. Hann. Münden 1984 * Hermann-Josef Rapp (Hrsg.): ''Reinhardswald. Eine Kulturgeschichte''. Euregio, Kassel 2002,

Film documentaries

* ''Der Baum der Bäume. Geheimnisvolle Reise in die Welt der Eichen'', TV documentary by Herbert Ostwald, Germany 2004 – which focuses on the old oak wood pastures of the Reinhardswald. * ''Der Reinhardswald'', TV documentary by Simone Jung, Germany 2005 - The film by Simone Jung gives an insight into the life of several people who live in the forest. The

and its restoration is also covered.

Footnotes and references

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20050209082531/http://www.hessennet.de/reinhardswald/ * https://web.archive.org/web/20090901121134/http://www.landkreiskassel.de/freizeit/sehensw/reinhard.htm
Forest folk from the Reinhardswald - unique voters in the land
at ''Spiegel-Online'' {{Authority control Central Uplands Hills of Hesse Forests and woodlands of Hesse Natural regions of the Weser-Leine Uplands