Braunlage () is a town and
health resort
A destination spa or health resort is a resort centered on a spa, such as a mineral spa. Historically, many such spas were developed at the location of natural hot springs or mineral springs; in the era before modern biochemical knowledge and ...
in the
Goslar
Goslar (; Eastphalian: ''Goslär'') is a historic town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the district of Goslar and located on the northwestern slopes of the Harz mountain range. The Old Town of Goslar and the Mines ...
district of
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 ...
in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. Situated within the
Harz
The Harz () is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' derives from the Middle High German ...
mountain range, south of the
Brocken
The Brocken, also sometimes referred to as the Blocksberg, is the highest peak in the Harz mountain range and also the highest peak in Northern Germany; it is near Schierke in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt between the rivers Weser and Elbe. ...
massif, Braunlage's main business is tourism, particularly
skiing
Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow. Variations of purpose include basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IO ...
. Nearby ski resorts include the Sonnenberg and the slopes on the
Wurmberg
Wurmberg is a municipality in the district of Enz in Baden-Württemberg in Germany.
Geography
Wurmberg is located on the so-called Platte, a Karst mountain range in the northern Black Forest (Schwarzwald).
Municipality
The municipality Wur ...
.
Geography
Braunlage is located on the
Warme Bode
The Warme Bode is the right-hand headstream of the Bode in the High Harz mountains of central Germany in the states of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. It is long and is formed by the confluence of the Große Bode and Kleine Bode rivers.
Name
Th ...
, a headstream of the river
Bode, close to the border with
Elend Elend may refer to:
* Elend, Saxony-Anhalt
Elend is a district of the town of Oberharz am Brocken in the Harz District, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It lies in the Bode valley in the High Harz in central Germany, at a height of . This part of the ...
in the state of
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 the ...
. The municipal area stretches along the south-eastern rim of the
Harz National Park
Harz National Park is a nature reserve in the German federal states of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. It comprises portions of the western Harz mountain range, extending from Herzberg and Bad Lauterberg at the southern edge to Bad Harzburg and I ...
from an elevation of up to at the summit of the Wurmberg. Other peaks in the vicinity include the
Achtermannshöhe
At , the Achtermannshöhe (also just called the Achtermann) in the Harz National Park is the third highest mountain in Lower Saxony and the fourth highest in the Harz mountains.
It lies in the unparished area of Harz between the Harz-Heide route ...
and the
Hahnenklee Crags The Hahnenklee Crags (german: Hahnenkleeklippen) are a rock formation west of Braunlage in the district of Goslar in Lower Saxony, Germany. They consist of hornfels.
Walking destination
The Hahnenklee Crags are a popular walking destination and ...
.
Districts
The town consists of three districts:
* Braunlage proper
*
Hohegeiß
Hohegeiss (german: Hohegeiß) is a health resort and winter sports village in the Harz mountains range in Lower Saxony, Germany. Since 1 July 1972 Hohegeiss has been part of the town of Braunlage, in the district of Goslar.
Geography
Hohegeis ...
*, incorporated on 1 July 1972
*
Sankt Andreasberg
Sankt Andreasberg is a former town in the Goslar (district), district of Goslar, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Since 1 November 2011, it is part of the town Braunlage. It is situated in the Harz, approximately 7 km west of Braunlage proper, and 2 ...
**, incorporated on 1 November 2011
* with the village of Königskrug
** with the villages of
Sonnenberg
Sonnenberg is a municipality in the Oberhavel district, in Brandenburg, Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, a ...
,
Oderhaus,
Oderbrück,
Oderberg
Oderberg () is a town in the district of Barnim, in Brandenburg in northeastern Germany. It is situated 16 km east of Eberswalde, and 27 km southwest of Schwedt, close to the border with Poland, and in close vicinity of Berlin.
Overvie ...
,
Odertaler Sägemühle and
Silberhütte
Transportation
Braunlage is on the ''
Bundesstraße
''Bundesstraße'' (German for "federal highway"), abbreviated ''B'', is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways.
Germany
Germany's ''Bundesstraßen'' network has a total length of about 40,000 km.
German ''Bundesstraßen'' ...
''
B4 between
Braunschweig
Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the Nor ...
and
Nordhausen Nordhausen may refer to:
* Nordhausen (district), a district in Thuringia, Germany
** Nordhausen, Thuringia, a city in the district
**Nordhausen station, the railway station in the city
* Nordhouse, a commune in Alsace (German: Nordhausen)
* Narost ...
and the
B27 from
Blankenburg Blankenburg may refer to:
Places
* Blankenburg am Harz, a German town in the district of Harz, Saxony-Anhalt
* Blankenburg Castle (Harz), the castle in Blankenburg am Harz (see above)
* Bad Blankenburg, a German town in the Saalfeld-Rudolstadt dis ...
to
Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
.
Local buses run between Braunlage and the nearby communities of
Bad Harzburg
Bad Harzburg (; Eastphalian: ''Bad Harzborch'') is a spa town in central Germany, in the Goslar district of Lower Saxony. It lies on the northern edge of the Harz mountains and is a recognised saltwater spa and climatic health resort.
Geogra ...
, Sankt Andreasberg,
Schierke
Schierke is a village and a former municipality in the Harz district, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2009, it is part of the town Wernigerode. Situated within the Harz mountain range in the valley of the river Bode, at the rim ...
,
Wernigerode
Wernigerode () is a town in the district of Harz, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Until 2007, it was the capital of the district of Wernigerode. Its population was 35,041 in 2012.
Wernigerode is located southwest of Halberstadt, and is picturesquely s ...
, Hohegeiß,
Bad Sachsa
Bad Sachsa is a town in the Göttingen (district), district of Göttingen, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town was one of the few municipalities in West Germany that imported electric power from former East Germany. This was done via Neuhof Substat ...
, Nordhausen,
Bad Lauterberg
Bad Lauterberg is a town in the district of Göttingen, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the southern Harz, approx. 15 km southwest of Braunlage, and 20 km southeast of Osterode am Harz.
Bad Lauterberg is known ''inter alia' ...
,
Herzberg and
Clausthal-Zellerfeld
Clausthal-Zellerfeld is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located in the southwestern part of the Harz mountains. Its population is approximately 15,000. The City is the location of the Clausthal University of Technology. The health resort ...
.
Braunlage used to be served by the
South Harz Railway Company
The South Harz Railway Company (german: Südharz-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft) or SHE was founded in 1897 and, on 15 August 1899, opened a 24 km long, winding and hilly, metre gauge railway from Walkenried via Wieda and Brunnenbachsmühle to Braun ...
, which provided a link to the
Harz Narrow Gauge Railways
The Harz Narrow Gauge Railways (German: ''Harzer Schmalspurbahnen'' or HSB) is a railway company that operates a network in the Harz mountains, in central Germany (formerly East Germany). The company was formed after the Second World War as a me ...
via
Sorge, but service ceased in 1958.
Climate
History
![Eisenhütte Braunlage 1654](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Eisenh%C3%BCtte_Braunlage_1654.jpg)
First mentioned as ''Brunla'' in 1227, the town started out as a pit settlement in the Harz forests. It appeared as ''Brunenlo'' in a 1253 register of the
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
counts of
Regenstein
The County of Regenstein was a mediaeval State of the Holy Roman Empire, statelet of the Holy Roman Empire. It was ruled by the Duchy of Saxony, Saxon comital House of Regenstein, named after their residence at Regenstein Castle near Blankenburg (H ...
and was revived when their successors, the
Counts of Blankenburg, established an
ironworks
An ironworks or iron works is an industrial plant where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and steel products are made. The term is both singular and plural, i.e. the singular of ''ironworks'' is ''ironworks''.
Ironworks succeeded bloomeri ...
here in 1561. With the extinction of the Blankenburg dynasty in 1599 Braunlage fell to the
Dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.
In the 17th century it was a small Brunswick
market town
A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...
in the west corner of the former Blankenburg lands. Tourism developed from the late 19th century onwards and other branches of business were forestry and a large
granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
quarry on the Wurmberg. Around 1910 one of the first interurban bus lines ran from Bad Harzburg up to Braunlage, served by
Büssing
Büssing AG was a German bus and truck manufacturer, established in 1903 by Heinrich Büssing (1843–1929) in Braunschweig. It quickly evolved to one of the largest European producers, whose utility vehicles with the Brunswick Lion emblem were wi ...
vehicles. The Wurmberg Ski Jumps were erected in 1922 (demolished in 2014). In 1934 Braunlage received
town privileges
Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the tradition ...
and municipal status as a health resort.
After
World War II
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 opposin ...
Braunlage was close to the fortified
inner German border
The inner German border (german: Innerdeutsche Grenze or ; initially also ) was the border between the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) from 1949 to 1990. Not including the ...
through the Harz mountains. In 1963 it became the location of the
Wurmberg Gondola Lift
The Wurmberg Gondola Lift (german: Wurmbergseilbahn) is a monocable gondola lift with a length of , built in 1963, leading from the Braunlage tourist resort within the Harz mountain range on the top of the high Wurmberg mountain.
The lift is co ...
, today with a length of and a height difference of to the summit station the longest in
Northern Germany
Northern Germany (german: link=no, Norddeutschland) is a linguistic, geographic, socio-cultural and historic region in the northern part of Germany which includes the coastal states of Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Lower Saxony an ...
. On 7 May 1964
Gerhard Zucker
Gerhard Zucker (1908–1985) was a German businessman and rocket engineer.
Biography
Born in Hasselfelde, he first came to public notice in 1931, when he began to work on the problem of transporting mail by rocket. In 1933 he performed several ...
demonstrated a flight of
mail rockets on the
Hasselkopf
Hasselkopf is a mountain on the southern periphery of Braunlage, Germany. It is 612 m high.
The hill is mostly covered in grass and undeveloped, but its northern slope has a short ski lift and can be used for downhill skiing in the winter m ...
hill. One of them exploded, killing two spectators.
Since
German reunification
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
in 1990 Braunlage has again been in the centre of the Harz tourist region but it has had to cope with growing competition from the neighbouring resorts in Saxony-Anhalt.
Demographics
Politics
Town council
Seats in the town council (''Stadtrat'') as of 2016 local elections:
*
Christian Democratic Union (CDU): 7
* ''Bürgerliste'' (
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
): 5
*
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany.
Saskia Esken has been the ...
(SPD): 4
Culture and sights
A museum of local history covers Braunlage's tradition as a health resort and official venue of the
International Ski Federation
The ''Fédération internationale de ski et de snowboard'' (FIS; en, International Ski and Snowboard Federation) is the highest international governing body for skiing and snowboarding. Founded on 2 February 1924 in Chamonix, France during the ...
(FIS). The townscape includes extensive spa gardens
Sports
The local ice-hockey team ''Harzer Wölfe'' is an important part of the north German ice-hockey culture.
There used to be several ski jumps on the Wurmberg, which hosted international competitions such as the
FIS Ski Jumping Continental Cup
The FIS Ski Jumping Continental Cup is a series of ski jumping competitions arranged yearly by the International Ski Federation. It is considered the second level of international ski jumping, ranking below the World Cup and not counting Grand ...
until 2011.
Sights
The
Silberteich
The Silberteich is a man-made reservoir, of a type called a ''Kunstteich'', and lies on the upper reaches of the Brunnenbach stream between Braunlage and Sankt Andreasberg in the Harz Mountains of Germany. It was built as part of the historic Up ...
and the ''
Hahnenkleeklippen'' on the way to Sankt Andreasberg are popular tourist destinations.
The
Dicke Tannen
Dicke Tannen is a protected landscape, around in area, near the Harz village of Hohegeiß, which lies in the borough of Braunlage. It is the site of the mightiest spruce trees in North Germany; the individual trees reaching heights of 50 metres ...
is a
protected landscape
Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although th ...
of giant spruce trees near Hohegeiß.
References
External links
*
Braunlage Tourism*
{{Authority control
Goslar (district)
Towns in the Harz
Duchy of Brunswick