Bodenfelde is a municipality in the district of Northeim, in

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 ...

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 ...

. It is situated on the right bank of the

Weser The Weser () is a river of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany. It begins at Hannoversch Münden through the confluence of the Werra and Fulda. It passes through the Hanseatic city of Bremen. Its mouth is further north against the ports of Bre ...

, approx. 35 km north of

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

, and 30 km northwest of

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 ...

at the southwest border of the Solling-Vogler Nature Park.

History

Bodenfelde was first mentioned in a document signed by

Louis the Pious Louis the Pious (german: Ludwig der Fromme; french: Louis le Pieux; 16 April 778 – 20 June 840), also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was King of the Franks and co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aqui ...

in 833. In the

High Middle Ages The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the periodization, period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended ...

Bodenfelde was a part of the

county of Dassel The County of Dassel (german: Grafschaft Dassel) emerged shortly after the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries when, after the extinction of the male line of the Billungs, its seat in Suilbergau, north of the Solling hills was divided into the d ...

. Amelith,

Nienover Nienover is a rural village in the Solling region of Lower Saxony, Germany. It contains one of the largest deserted medieval towns in northern Europe. Nienover is an ''Ortschaft'' of the municipality Bodenfelde, which contains the villages Nienove ...

, Polier and Wahmbeck are villages nearby Bodenfelde which were incorporated in 1974. There used to be a Jewish community in Bodenfelde. with the impending oppression of the Nazi regime, they left. Having been sold to a farmer in 1937, the wooden synagogue from 1825 survived

Kristallnacht () or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from ...

when the owner defended it from vandals. In the early twenty-first century, the

half-timbered Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

building was dismantled and exactly re-constructed in nearby Goettingen, which had a Jewish community in need of a synagogue (the local one having been destroyed during Kristallnacht. In 2008 the murderer nicknamed the Black Widow was convicted. Over a period of two decades, she had seduced and killed or had killed four elderly men for their money.

Notable Person

Jacob Freudenthal Jacob Freudenthal (20 June 1839 – 1 June 1907) was a German philosopher. He was born at Bodenfelde, Hanover and died at Schreiberhau. Freudenthal received his education at the universities of Breslau and Göttingen, and at the rabbinical semi ...

References

* Herbst, Detlev, ''Jüdisches Leben im Solling – Der Synagogenverband Bodenfelde-Uslar-Lippoldsberg und die Synagogengemeinschaft Lauenförde''. Uslar 1997 * Hoffmann, Lutz et al., ''Zwischen Feld und Fabrik: Arbeiteralltag auf dem Dorf von der Jahrhundertwende bis heute; die Sozialgeschichte des Chemiewerkes Bodenfelde 1896 bis 1986''. Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 1986 * Junge, Walter, ''Chronik des Fleckens Bodenfelde – Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart''. Bodenfelde 1983 * Junge, Walter and Thomas Thiele, ''Flecken Bodenfelde mit seinen Ortschaften Bodenfelde, Nienhover und Wahmbeck – Vorgestern, gestern und heute''. Geiger, Horb am Neckar 1987 * Rock, Balzer, ''Die Ortsgeschichte von Bodenfelde''. Buchdruckerei Klapproth, Uslar 1940 Northeim (district) Holocaust locations in Germany {{Northeim-geo-stub