Altensalzkoth is a village in the Lower Saxon town of

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, secon ...

in north Germany. It belongs to the parish of Eversen in the district of

Celle Celle () is a town and capital of the district of Celle, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town is situated on the banks of the river Aller, a tributary of the Weser, and has a population of about 71,000. Celle is the southern gateway to the Lü ...

on the

Lüneburg Heath Lüneburg Heath (german: Lüneburger Heide) is a large area of heath, geest, and woodland in the northeastern part of the state of Lower Saxony in northern Germany. It forms part of the hinterland for the cities of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen ...

. It lies 13 km north of

on the ''

Landesstraße ''Landesstraßen'' (singular: ''Landesstraße'') are roads in Germany and Austria that are, as a rule, the responsibility of the respective German or Austrian federal state. The term may therefore be translated as "state road". They are roads t ...

'' L 240 and currently has 65 inhabitants.

History

The history of Altensalzkoth is closely bound to the saltworks in Sülze. When the moors in the vicinity of Sülze were exhausted, the boiling sites were moved initially to the Bornrieth Moor from 1673 to 1678. In 1719 the first discussions took place about moving the boiling sites again, because the Bornrieth Moor was also being exhausted. To achieve this the existing pipes to the moor from Lindhorst along the

Örtze Örtze () is a river of Lower Saxony, Germany. The Örtze rises north of Munster in the ''Große Heide'' (in the ''Raubkammer'' federal forest) and, after , joins the Aller southeast of Winsen. Source and course The Örtze valley is an old ...

, were moved eastwards past Eversen to the ''Scheuer Bruch'', south of Sülze, in the newly established village of Altensalzkoth. The survey staff charged with organising the move described this new site on their maps as ''Alte Salz kath'', from which the present name of the village was later derived. In 1723 the new wooden pipes were finished. From 1725 brine was boiled in the salt huts of Altensalzkoth. Due to the increasing difficulty of transporting Sülze brine due to the long road, in 1793 the boiling sites started to move back to Sülze. A large number of those working in the saltworks left Altensalzkoth as a result. For those remaining behind a long battle began over the division of land in order to secure their livelihood from farming. Years later this was resolved by giving the settlers three acres (''Morgen'') of pasture and six acres of farmland each. Although this division of land enabled them to eke out a basic existence, the inhabitants also developed secondary occupations. Barrel-making gained an importance at this time. Many household objects were made from the wood of local trees and sold at the markets in

and

Hermannsburg Hermannsburg is a village and a former municipality in the Celle district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Since 1 January 2015 it is part of the municipality Südheide. It has been a state-recognised resort town since 1971. It is situated on the river ...

. After the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

the SS Führer

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
'' US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

custody, he reported to the parish office in Eversen on 30 March 1946 and took a job as a

lumberjack Lumberjacks are mostly North American workers in the logging industry who perform the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to loggers in the era (before 1945 in the Unite ...

in Altensalzkoth. When a short time later the firm who had employed him went bankrupt, he rented an empty farmhouse and lived in the years that followed mainly by doing odd jobs. In 1950 Eichmann fled to

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, where he was traced some years later by

Mossad Mossad ( , ), ; ar, الموساد, al-Mōsād, ; , short for ( he, המוסד למודיעין ולתפקידים מיוחדים, links=no), meaning 'Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations'. is the national intelligence agency ...

and taken to

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. For his co-conspiracy in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

Eichmann was sentenced to death. Until its incorporation into the parish of Eversen in 1929, Altensalzkoth was an independent parish. Since 1972 it has belonged to the borough of Bergen.

People

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
'' Villages in Lower Saxony Celle (district) Lüneburg Heath Bergen, Lower Saxony