The Uffe is a river in the states

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 ...

and

Thuringia Thuringia (; officially the Free State of Thuringia, ) is one of Germany, Germany's 16 States of Germany, states. With 2.1 million people, it is 12th-largest by population, and with 16,171 square kilometers, it is 11th-largest in area. Er ...

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 ...

. The Uffe has its source on the Großer Bockstalskopf in Lower Saxony, a subpeak of the Ravensberg mountain, and flows through the town of Bad Sachsa down to the village of (belongs to Bad Sachsa). From there the Uffe is known as the ''Sachsengraben'' ("Saxon Ditch") and continues to the village of (belongs to Hohenstein). The stream then sinks into the gypsum

karst Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Ther ...

, before reaching the River Wieda beyond the village of (belongs to Hohenstein). The Wieda, too, regularly dries up behind the hamlet of Wiedigshof. Until the middle of the last century the Uffe divided in the village of Neuhof. The main stream flowed towards Klettenberg and Holbach where its

water power Hydropower (from Ancient Greek -, "water"), also known as water power or water energy, is the use of falling or fast-running water to produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by converting the gravitational potential or kin ...

was used in several mills. This stream is still called the Uffe today. The branch running towards Branderode is called the ''Sachsengraben'' and passes the villages of Branderode and Obersachswerfen before discharging below Schwinden into the Wieda, which flows into the Zorge downstream of Schwinden. The waters of the Zorge pass down the Helme,

Unstrut The Unstrut ( or ) is a river in Germany and a left tributary of the Saale. The Unstrut originates in northern Thuringia near Dingelstädt (west of Kefferhausen in the Eichsfeld area) and its catchment area is the whole of the Thuringian Ba ...

and

Saale The Saale (), also known as the Saxon Saale ( ) and Thuringian Saale (), is a river in Germany and a left-bank tributary of the Elbe. It is not to be confused with the smaller Fränkische Saale, Franconian Saale, a right-bank tributary of the M ...

into the

Elbe The Elbe ( ; ; or ''Elv''; Upper Sorbian, Upper and , ) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Republic), then Ge ...

. Today the Uffe has no direct route beyond Neuhof (a

sewage farm Sewage farms use sewage for irrigation and fertilizing agricultural land. The practice is common in warm, arid climates where irrigation is valuable while sources of fresh water are scarce. Suspended solids may be converted to humus by microbes an ...

intervenes) and it now begins in front of a bridge (Branderode - Klettenberg road) about 5 metres above the ''Sachsengraben''. Due to the lack of a link to the 'main' Uffe, it is usually dry there, is filled by springs and flows through the villages of Klettenberg and Holbach, by the B 243 federal road, onto the Ichte. Between Bad Sachsa and Neuhof, the Uffe flows immediately past the foot of the Sachsenstein, a former

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in group ...

in the

Zechstein The Zechstein ( German either from ''mine stone'' or ''tough stone'') is a unit of sedimentary rock layers of Late Permian ( Lopingian) age located in the European Permian Basin which stretches from the east coast of England to northern Poland. T ...

Sea. Here, by a section of the South Harz Railway, are the ruins of the {{ill, Sachsenstein Castle, de, Burg Sachsenstein.

External links

Gypsumm karst and disappearing streams
(in German) Rivers of Lower Saxony Rivers of Thuringia Nordhausen (district) Rivers of the Harz Rivers of Germany

See also

External links