Elend is a district of the town of

Oberharz am Brocken Oberharz am Brocken () is a town in the Harz (district), Harz District, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It was formed on 1 January 2010 by the merger of the town of Elbingerode with the municipalities of the former ''Verwaltungsgemeinschaft'' ("coll ...

in the

Harz District Harz is a district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Its area is . History The district was established by merging the former districts of Halberstadt, Wernigerode and Quedlinburg as well as the city of Falkenstein (from the district of Aschersleben ...

, in

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 ...

. It lies in the

Bode valley The Bode () is a river in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, a left tributary of the Saale. It rises in the Harz mountains and drains them in a northerly direction. After it discharges into the Saale at Nienburg. The river is named after a leg ...

in the High Harz in central Germany, at a height of . This part of the valley is known locally as ''Elendstal''. Elend is located near the former

Inner German Border The inner German border ( or ''deutsch–deutsche Grenze''; initially also , zonal boundary) was the frontier between the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) and the West Germany, Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West ...

between West and East Germany. Its population is 318 (2021).

Geography

About 3 kilometres west of the village is the nature reserve of Kramershai.

Climate

The annual

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, rain and snow mixed ("sleet" in Commonwe ...

in Elend is 1,116 mm (43.9 in.) which is in the upper third of the values recorded by the weather stations of the German Meteorological Office. Over 90% have lower values. The driest month is September; the wettest is December, when about 2.1 times as much rain falls as in the driest month. The average annual variations in precipitation lie in the upper third. In over 91% of all locations the monthly precipitation varies less than in Elend.

History

Walther Grosse mentions fields ''under the Elend Road'' (''unter dem elendischen Wege'') for the first time in a manuscript of field names in the ''

Amt Amt is a type of administrative division governing a group of municipalities, today only in Germany, but formerly also common in other countries of Northern Europe. Its size and functions differ by country and the term is roughly equivalent to ...

'' of Elbingerode for 1483. In a ''

Vogt An , sometimes simply advocate, (German, ), or (French, ), was a type of medieval office holder, particularly important in the Holy Roman Empire, who was delegated some of the powers and functions of a major feudal lord, or for an institutio ...

ei'' account for the ''Amt'' of

Elbingerode (Harz) Elbingerode is an ''Ortsteil'' of Oberharz am Brocken in the Harz district, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The former town was incorporated into the newly established municipality on 1 January 2010. Its population is 3,101 (2021). Geogra ...

dated 1506/07 there is an entry which states: ''"Income from the sawmill at Elend in the Forest XII March"'' (''Innome von der Sagemoln zum Elende deß Forst XII Mar '). Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt, Abteilung Magdeburg, Rep. H Stolberg-Wernigerode, H.A. A 33 Fach 1-5 No. 2, Sheet 12r There are a lot of indications that this sawmill had existed for some time before that. On 1 January 2010, the municipality of Elend merged with the municipalities of Sorge,

Stiege Stiege is a village and a former municipality in the district of Harz, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 January 2010, it is part of the town Oberharz am Brocken. Its population is 862 (2021).Tanne, as well as the towns of

Hasselfelde Hasselfelde is a town in the district of Harz, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is in the eastern Harz, approximately 17 km south of Wernigerode. Since 1 January 2010 it has been part of the town of Oberharz am Brocken. Its population is 1,941 ( ...

and Benneckenstein (Harz), forming the town

Hiking

Not far from Elend is the Helenenruh, a rocky ridge with outstanding views, which is checkpoint no. 21 in the

Harzer Wandernadel The Harzer Wandernadel is a system of hiking awards in the Harz mountains in central Germany. Hikers (or mountain bikers) can earn awards at different levels of challenge by walking to the various checkpoints in the network and stamping their ...

hiking network.

Notable people

* Friedrich Krebs (1832–1905), first chief apostle of the

New Apostolic Church The New Apostolic Church (NAC) is a Christian denomination, Christian church of the Catholic Apostolic Church, Irvingian tradition. Its origins are in 1863, in the split from the Catholic Apostolic Church during a schism in Hamburg, Ger ...

* Hartmut Esser (born 1943), sociologist, professor at the

University of Mannheim The University of Mannheim (German: ''Universität Mannheim''), abbreviated UMA, is a public university, public research university in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1967, the university has its origins in the ''Palatine Aca ...

References

Sources

* Karlheinz Brumme: ''Elend. Chronik eines Harzdörfchens unterm Brocken'', Blankenburg, Wernigerode, o. J.

008 008, OO8, O08, or 0O8 may refer to: * "008", a fictional 00 Agent In Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and the derived films, the 00 Section of MI6 is considered the secret service's elite. A 00 (pronounced "Double O") is a field agent who ho ...

* Dietmar Schultke: ''Der DDR-Alltag in der Grenzkompanie Elend'', in: 'Keiner kommt durch - Die Geschichte der innerdeutschen Grenze und Berliner Mauer, Aufbau-Verlag Berlin, 4. Auflage 2008

External links

{{Authority control Former municipalities in Saxony-Anhalt Oberharz am Brocken Villages in the Harz