The Drachenfels Club is a society for the preservation and care of monuments in the vicinity of the German town of

Bad Dürkheim Bad Dürkheim () is a spa town in the Rhine-Neckar urban agglomeration, and is the seat of the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Geography Location Bad Dürkheim lies at the edge of Palatinate Forest on the German Wine ...

. It owns numerous

natural monument A natural monument is a natural or natural/cultural feature of outstanding or unique value because of its inherent rarity, representative of aesthetic qualities or cultural significance. Under World Commission on Protected Areas guidelines, nat ...

s and

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

s, some of which it has been given and others which it has established itself.

History

The Drachenfels Club was founded in 1873 under the chairmanship of Wilhelm Schepp. Its name came from the first project that the society undertook: to make the Dragon Cave (''Drachenhöhle'') accessible. The cave lies under the Drachenfels, a hill in the borough of

, which is linked to the legend of the ''

Nibelung The term Nibelung (German) or Niflungr (Old Norse) is a personal or clan name with several competing and contradictory uses in Germanic heroic legend. It has an unclear etymology, but is often connected to the root ''nebel'', meaning mist. The te ...

''. Other renovations and the enclosure of spaces and natural monuments took place the following year. A short time later, probably around 1875, the new club was given the Laura Hut (''Laurahütte'') in Leistadt, which it had not built itself, but was able to use the legacy of the Retzer family from

Freinsheim Freinsheim (; Palatine German: Fränsem) is a town in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. With about 5,000 inhabitants, it is among the state's smaller towns. It is also the seat of the like-named ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a ...

. From 1896 the club built its most expensive structure: the

Bismarck Tower A Bismarck tower (german: Bismarckturm) is a specific type of monument built according to a more or less standard model across Germany to honour its first chancellor, Otto von Bismarck (d. 1898). A total of 234 of these towers were inventoried b ...

on the Peterskopf. Innumerable new

refuge hut Refuge is a place or state of safety. It may also refer to a more specific meaning: Safety * Area of refuge, a location in a building that may be used by occupants in the event of a fire * Bunker, a defensive fortification designed to protect pe ...

s were built and countless renovations of buildings and natural sites followed. The club's activities were put on hold during 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 opposin ...

. In 1947 it was re-founded in its present form.

Cultural monument A national heritage site is a heritage site having a value that has been registered by a governmental agency as being of national importance to the cultural heritage or history of that country. Usually such sites are listed in a heritage regist ...
s

* Laura Hut (Leistadt) *

*'' Kriemhildenstuhl'' *'' Flaggenturm'' *''Kaiser-Wilhelm-Höhe'' *''Schaeferwarte'' *''Vigilienturm''

Natural monuments

* Drachenfels *''Drei Eichen'' *''Heidefelsen''

External links

*http://www.drachenfelsclub.de Culture of the Palatinate (region) Bad Dürkheim (district) Palatinate Forest Historic preservation 1873 establishments in Germany

History

Cultural monument A national heritage site is a heritage site having a value that has been registered by a governmental agency as being of national importance to the cultural heritage or history of that country. Usually such sites are listed in a heritage regist ...s

Natural monuments

External links

Cultural monument A national heritage site is a heritage site having a value that has been registered by a governmental agency as being of national importance to the cultural heritage or history of that country. Usually such sites are listed in a heritage regist ...
s