Wefensleben is a village and a municipality in the

Börde A ''börde'' (; plural: ''börden'') is a region of highly fertile lowland in North Germany, a "fertile plain". These landscapes often cover great areas and are particularly important for arable farming on account of their rich soils. These reg ...

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt ( ; ) is a States of Germany, state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.17 million inhabitants, making it the List of German states ...

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 ...

. Since 1 January 2010, it is part of the collective municipality

Obere Aller Obere Aller is a ''Verbandsgemeinde'' ("collective municipality") in the Börde (district), Börde district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Before 1 January 2010, it was a ''Verwaltungsgemeinschaft''. It is situated approximately 30 km west of Magd ...

Geography

Wefensleben is situated on the river

Aller Aller may refer to: Places Rivers *Aller (Germany), a major river in North Germany * Aller (Asturian river), a river in Asturias, Spain * River Aller, a small river on Exmoor in Somerset, England * Aller Brook, a small river in Devon, England Inh ...

, in the lowland between the foothills of the

Lappwald 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 and Saxony-Anhalt runs through the woods, of which ...

and the ''Osterberg'' (). In the west is a forest of named " Trenckmann's Busch" or "Zechenholz".

Village

Parts of Wefensleben are Wefensleben, the borough Belsdorf and the living-place Zechenhaus.

History

The first documentarily mention occurred in the year 1160 in the property list of the

St. Ludger's Abbey St. Ludger's Abbey () was a former monastery of the Benedictine Order in Helmstedt, Lower Saxony, founded by Saint Ludger around 800. Until it was German Mediatisation, secularised in 1802 it was an Imperial Abbey, with sovereignty over the whole t ...

Helmstedt Helmstedt (; Eastphalian: ''Helmstidde'') is a town on the eastern edge of the German state of Lower Saxony. It is the capital of the District of Helmstedt. The historic university and Hanseatic city conserves an important monumental heritage o ...

(). To middle of the 18th century Wefensleben is a pure farmer village. In the district available mineral resources influenced the evolution of the place.
With the discovery of a coal seam in 1741 the coal mining began. Until 1825 coal was won in up to 12 shafts. From 1809 the ''Zechenhaus'' was the seat of the

Eastphalia Eastphalia ( �stˈfaːlən Eastphalian: ''Oostfalen'') is a historical region in northern Germany, encompassing the eastern '' Gaue'' (shires) of the historic stem duchy of Saxony, roughly confined by the River Leine in the west and the Elbe a ...

n mountain and hut administration and from 1815 up to 1843 of the mountain and hut administration of the government district of Magdeburg.
Between 1750 and 1900 3 quarries were operated to produce sandstone blocks as building material for many sacral and profane buildings in Central Germany.
In the 1970s several

Plattenbauten A large-panel-system building is a building constructed of large, prefabricated concrete slabs. Such buildings are often found in housing developments. Although large-panel-system buildings are often considered to be typical of Eastern Bloc co ...

were built in the village and Wefensleben became a sleep and living place for the attendants of the

Helmstedt–Marienborn border crossing The Helmstedt–Marienborn border crossing (), named ''Grenzübergangsstelle Marienborn'' (GÜSt) (''border crossing Marienborn'') by the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was the largest and most important border crossing on the Inner German b ...

and their families. At this time many members of the

Stasi The Ministry for State Security (, ; abbreviated MfS), commonly known as the (, an abbreviation of ), was the Intelligence agency, state security service and secret police of East Germany from 1950 to 1990. It was one of the most repressive pol ...

moved to Wefensleben especially attendants of the Passkontrolleinheit (PKE) a division of the former Eastern Germany secret service who worked at the border crossing. Dorfkirche in Belsdorf bei Wefensleben

References

{{Authority control Municipalities in Saxony-Anhalt Börde (district)