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Return Wildlife The animals of the region and a not always popular homecomer With its many forests, the Black Forest provides a habitat for a wide variety of animal species. Probably the most common are roes, wild boars and foxes. Roes are very numerous in the Black Forest. They grow to a maximum length of 1.30 meters and a height of 75 centimeters and, as can be easily determined to be related to deer, but smaller than them. Thus, the roebuck also has a kind of antlers, which is shed in the fall and grows back over the winter. It gets new forked ends every year, so that a roebuck has up to six tips on its horns, three on each side. Roes have reddish-brown fur in summer and more grayish-brown in winter. Young fawns are born in early June. They are hidden in the grass and left there in case of danger. So it can happen that you find such a fawn in the forest, because its mother has fled from you. In this case you must not touch the fawn, otherwise the mother will not accept it. Roes live mostly in small groups and are mainly nocturnal, as they are too often disturbed in the forest during the day. Foxes are distantly related to dogs and have reddish-brown fur, which is much lighter on the belly, and a bushy tail. They eat mice and birds' eggs, occasionally hares and fawns, besides rarely fruits or mushrooms. They inhabit underground burrows, which have several entrances, so that the fox can escape unnoticed in case of danger. As almost everywhere in Germany, there are wild boars in the Black Forest. There is a reason for this. These animals rarely shy away from a natural boundary in their search for new territories. If necessary, they will even swim through wide bodies of water. Even a highway is hardly an obstacle. Wild boars live in groups, called rods, of related females, who are joined by their young, called freshets. Male wild boars may approach the rods only during mating season. Wild boars can see poorly, but hear and smell well. With their noses they detect worms, insects and small animals, even under the surface of the ground. They often then rummage up the ground to get at their food. This causes displeasure among farmers when the wild boars dig up the fields, but it is very beneficial for the forest, because not only is the soil loosened, but root pests such as the white grub are also eaten. Wild boars love to bathe and then wallow in the mud. This helps them get rid of pesky insects. The lynx, which has spread from Switzerland to the Black Forest, and the beaver have immigrated again. The large, very busy rodent was first settled on the upper Danube, from where it has moved upstream into the Black Forest valleys. Apart from its considerable overall length of up to one meter and a weight of up to thirty kilograms, the beaver impresses above all with its building activities. In a body of water it builds a beaver's lodge out of brushwood and mud, i.e. a burrow in which it gives birth to its young and hides them. In order to protect the beaver's lodge, its entrance is always under water. However, since a body of water changes its water level depending on the season and the weather, the beaver itself intervenes in the course. To do this, it builds dams to dam up the water and regulate the water level. If the water level rises too high, the beaver opens the dam and releases water. This keeps its lodge inaccessible to other predators. The beaver is also a very good swimmer. Unfortunately, in some places it also causes trouble with its building activities, for example when it puts meadows under water because it has built a dam. It also needs trees, which it cuts down with its nail teeth. Most people in the Black Forest, however, are happy about the busy homecomer. Nowadays, the Black Forest is about 75% forested. That sounds like quite a lot, but is it true? In fact, there is a lot of forest area, but if you take a closer look at it, you will notice that it is very closely interrupted, mostly by roads. Thus, it can be said that there is only a limited amount of contiguous, large-scale forest in the Black Forest, a circumstance that limits and endangers native wildlife.

Return Mill There is a mill in the Black Forest valley. The river courses of the Black Forest with their sometimes considerable gradients have been suitable for the use of water power since early times. This is a very old method of energy generation and is documented as early as the fifth century BC. The first grain mills were built in the third century BC. In the Black Forest, the use of water power initially took place through conventional mills, which were mainly used for grain processing in agriculture. In addition, hammer mills and saws for woodworking were also powered by water. They were all built on the slopes where the gradient of the water is greatest and thus develops the most kinetic energy. In the milling process, the dedusted grain is poured into a hopper from which the grains gradually fall between two millstones. One of the millstones stands on the ground and weighs up to ten kilograms. Above this is a second stone, which weighs about half as much. This is moved by means of water power. The grains, which are ground by friction, pass into a drum, which is also turned by the mill wheel and acts like a sieve. Since the upper rock layer in the Black Forest is sandstone, the millstones were also made of this material. Sawmills were needed to process wood as a building material. Until the nineteenth century, wood was the material used to make the majority of utensils such as dishes and containers. It was also, and above all, of central importance for the construction of houses. In the region you can often find trade names with the component "saw", for example often a "Sägedobel" ("small saw valley"). You can admire a very old Black Forest mill in the Simonswald valley, namely the Hexenlochmühle. The same is true for the Rankmühle in St. Märgen. The Mönchhof sawmill in Waldachtal can be visited. It was built as early as the fifteenth century and is still in its original condition, i.e. it is also functional. Also worth seeing is the Großjockenmühle, which was built in 1883 at the entrance to the Ravenna Gorge. It has a structural peculiarity: the water for the mill wheel is not supplied from the outside, but flows through the roof. The Kobisenmühle near St. Georgen is also worth a look. It has been restored and can be visited. It is interesting that it has two grinding gears. In the course of time, the sawmills in particular were converted to steam operation; today, of course, they run on electricity.

Return Black Forest Valley Where there are mountains, there are valleys. In the Black Forest there are many mountains with a height of over 1,000 meters. In total, there are over a hundred. But where such high mountains rise, there are of course also valleys. On the west side of the Black Forest, i.e. from the direction of the Upper Rhine Graben, these are cut deeply into the flanks of the mountains. On the eastern side, on the other hand, they slope down rather flat and hill-like, and the differences in elevation between mountain and valley are smaller. On the slopes especially of the Upper Black Forest as well as the elevations of the Northern Black Forest, there were glaciers during the last ice age, which had formed some cirque lakes due to their gradual runoff and the gravel carried in them. In the depressions, due to the gradual erosion by the watercourses, mostly the gneiss comes to light, which in combination with several granite bodies, such as the one in Triberg, forms the basement of the Black Forest, while the mountains consist of an overburden layer, which is variegated stone. On the western side, i.e. towards the Upper Rhine Graben, the bedrock is much more prominent than on the eastern side. On the western side, the streams and rivers carry more water than towards the east. In general, the red sandstone layer is stronger in the Northern Black Forest than in the Southern Black Forest. The water of the Black Forest valleys flows into the Rhine or the Danube. Thus, the main European watershed is also partly located in the Black Forest, has its westernmost bulge here. Some of the river sources are enclosed like wells, especially the Danube source near Donaueschingen, as well as the Neckar, Enz, Pregnitz and Berkel sources. The longest river within the Black Forest is the Enz, at 105 kilometers. A few rivers have changed their course in the past, for example the Wutach. In times about 70,000 years ago it was still a tributary of the Danube, which can be seen from its eastern course in its upper reaches. Only at Achdorf it bends with the so-called "Wutach knee" by 100 degrees to the south and then approaches the Rhine. The valley of the Elz also makes a tight bend as it winds around the mountain Gschasikopf. Another valley is famous not so much for geological reasons, but for television: The Glottertal provided the backdrop for the soap opera "Die Schwarzwaldklinik", which was very popular in the eighties. Even though the series is no longer running, the Glottertal is worth a visit. The Höllental is worth seeing because of its narrow incisions. In it, the Höllental Railway, named after it, winds its way from Freiburg up to Titisee-Neustadt. At its upper end is the four-kilometer-long Ravenna Gorge, which is very primal with its waterfalls. The 25-kilometer-long Simonswald Valley with its slopes up to 700 meters high is also rather wild. It contains a ban forest area and the forty meter high Zweribacher waterfalls. One of the most striking valleys and at the same time the border between the northern and southern Black Forest is the Kinzig Valley. Near Hausach, it lies 550 meters lower than the surrounding mountains and is relatively wide. Together with its tributaries, the river Kinzig forms the most water-rich and widely branched body of water in the Black Forest. Here, as well as in the side valleys, mining took place early on; cobalt and silver were mined near Schenkenzell. This valley was already developed by the Romans through the Kinzigtal road. There are also several caves that you can visit, such as the Erdmannshöhle in Hasel.

Return (Black Forest) cuckoo clock "Cuckoo, cuckoo" calls from the clock. The cuckoo clock is the symbol of the Black Forest par excellence. The wall clock in the shape of a little house, from which a cuckoo peeps out through a flap and proclaims the hour, is known all over the world and a popular souvenir for tourists to Germany from other countries. It is believed that a first form of the Black Forest cuckoo clock was created around 1738 in the workshop of Franz Anton Ketterer, a clock-maker from Schönwald. Possibly, however, the idea goes back to Ketterer's father. Michael Dilger from Neukirch and Matthäus Hummel are also said to have built cuckoo clocks in the Black Forest as early as 1742. Of Friedrich Dilger, at least, it is known that he deepened his knowledge of clockmaking in France in 1712. Whether the concept of a clock with a bird call originally came from the Black Forest can no longer be determined with certainty. It is said that the Elector Johann Georg I of Saxony already had a clock with a cuckoo call in his collection anno 1619. There is also an artistically decorated clock with a crowing rooster in the Strasbourg Cathedral. This might have been an inspiration for the cuckoo clock. At the time of the clock-makers Ketterer, Dilger and Hummel, the cuckoo clock did not look like it does today. It was initially a wooden clock with a cuckoo call in the form of two small organ pipes. The external design of the cuckoo clock, which is known all over the world and is common today, is the result of an initiative of Robert Gerwig. From 1850 to 1857, the ingenious designer of the Black Forest and Höllental Railways was the first director of the Duke of Baden's Clock-making School in Furtwangen, which had been founded in 1850 specifically for the needs of small clock-makers in order to provide a counterweight to the increasingly industrial mass production of clocks. In a kind of competition, Gerwig searched for designs for new, contemporary clock models and the result was the so-called "Bahnhäusleuhr" ("railroad cottage clock"), whose main characteristic is the sloping roof. Designed by Friedrich Eisenlohr, it is essentially modeled on a railroad guard's cottage, which was something very modern at the time. Over the years, various workshops added all sorts of ornaments and sometimes elaborate carvings to this basic concept, so that the cuckoo clock is always individually designed, despite its railroad cottage shape. There are even versions that, in addition to the cuckoo, have more figures that move or indicate the quarter hours by call. Most cuckoo clocks are quite small, only one is very huge. It is located in Triberg and is over fifteen meters high. Its movement weighs close to six tons, but the greatest thing is that you can enter its interior. Isn't that great? It's like a look-through puzzle, only big.

Return Wildsee What is a cirque lake and where does it come from? At 910 meters above sea level, lake Wildsee is located in the southern part of the Black Forest National Park, not far from the Seekopf mountain, which rises 1,055 meters. The Wildsee is about eleven meters deep. It is surrounded by a forest area that was already declared a ban forest in 1911, which means that it has not been cultivated since then and is completely left to itself. The cirque wall behind the Wildsee is 125 meters high. Its water drains off via the Schönmünz stream, which in turn flows into the Murg. The Wildsee is a glacial cirque lake, as they are often found in the highlands of the Black Forest. Cirque lakes were formed by glaciers that created depressions on mountain slopes. The ice of the glaciers slowly sinks downhill. Underneath, debris and rock is detached from the ground and carried along. This permanent pushing causes the underlying soil to deepen into a depression. This is the basin of the later cirque lake, which fills as the glacier gradually melts. It is interesting to note that cirques in the Black Forest formed mainly on northern to eastern slopes. This is due to the fact that more snow had accumulated there and thus the amount of ice carried downhill by the glacier was greater. The cirque lakes formed during the last ice age, when the Black Forest was glaciated. Other well-known bodies of water of this type are Feldsee (near Feldberg), Mummelsee (near Seebach in the Ortenau district) or Nonnenmattweiher (Kleines Wiesental). Typical for all of them is their shape with a relatively flat, deepened bottom and a mostly steep back wall. Cirque lakes do not only occur in the Black Forest, but in principle everywhere where there were glaciers before.

Return Clock carrier On foot all over the world The profession of clock carrier developed in the Black Forest from that of glass carrier. It is documented for the first time around 1740. His trademark is also that of the glass carrier, namely the back carrier called "Krätze", woven from willow, in which the clocks were transported. The clock carriers were on foot, because means of transport such as railroads or cars did not exist at that time. Since Black Forest clocks were initially made in domestic workshops, the clock-makers themselves had little opportunity to sell their wares. At that time, however, there were the glass carriers who were already on their way to markets. Therefore, the clock-makers simply gave them their works. Thus, then developed its own association of merchants specializing in the sale of clocks, the clock carriers. They not only brought the world-famous cuckoo clocks among the people. In fact, other clocks were made in the Black Forest. The first wooden timepieces are said to have been made as early as the 17th century, the so-called "Waagbalkenuhren" ("balance beam clocks"). Somewhat better known were the lacquer shield clocks. Around 1843, there are said to have been about 750 clock carriers on the road. Some of them went far away, as far as Russia and Turkey. The clock carriers ensured not least that clocks were no longer just a luxury item. Due to the cheap wooden clocks from the Black Forest and the wandering clock carriers, many people could afford a clock. Schild-clock

Return Bollenhut comstume hat The whole world knows this hat, but not everyone knows what it means. It looks like a collection of wool balls, but it is not only part of the Black Forest costume, it is something like a landmark, the costume hat called "Bollenhut". It comes in three colors. Red for unmarried, black for married and purple for widowed women. By the way, it is only genuine if it has fourteen balls. It has been worn since 1750 and was first seen in the villages of Gutach, Kirnbach and Reichenbach (Hornberg). There it was part of the costume of the Protestant population from the time when a girl had her confirmation. However, the Bollenhut did not become really famous until the middle of the twentieth century, and then mainly through Heimatfilme, a particular genre of movies. But also the painter Wilhelm Hasemann and composer Leon Jessel with his operetta "Das Schwarzwaldmädel" ("Black Forest girl") made the Bollenhut popular. Since then it can be found all over the Black Forest. Only eleven of the fourteen balls are visible, the other three are tucked underneath and are usually somewhat smaller. The base of the hat is made of straw. In total, such a hat can weigh up to two kilograms. It usually has a black ribbon, with which it is attached to the head of the wearer. Originally, the hat of the Black Forest women's costume was probably made exclusively of straw. Such headgear still exists in some villages, such as Schonach. There the women wear such a hat with an unusually high top hat. The Bollenhut is said to have been created by a decree of Duke Friedrich Eugen von Württemberg, who ordered the inhabitants to show red or black decoration on their straw hats. It is said that at first the women only painted colorful circles on the straw. The balls made of cloth followed only later. A variation of the Bollenhut is the so-called Rose hat, a straw hat with rose decoration. The colors having the same meaning as with the Bollenhut. In St. Märgen and St. Peter there is a straw hat covered with velvet. There is also a ribbon cap that reaches over the ears. This was very practical in winter. By the way, the eleven visible balls are said to have symbolic value. Through them, the triune God, the four cardinal points and the earthly are pictorially represented.

Return Children in traditional costume Children also wore traditional costumes in the Black Forest. However, in those days, childhood here was not an easy one, as the offspring had to actively help out on the family farm at a young age. Children eventually inherited the estate. However, the farm was not divided up when it was inherited. This was done to ensure that the farm could continue unimpaired and that the cattle were not taken to another farm. This affected the succession should there be more than one child. The farm was bequeathed either to the youngest son or the eldest daughter. Other children had to marry in order to be taken to another farm. If they were unsuccessful, they were left as servants or maids on their own estates. The traditional costumes for children can be admired in the Trachtenmuseum in Haslach. Here, more than a hundred traditional costumes are exhibited on life-size dolls, as well as everyday objects of the peasants of the Black Forest. Incidentally, the museum is housed in the old Capuchin monastery, which is the last remaining Capuchin complex in southern Germany.

Return Ski jumping "Almost" every place had a ski jump. In the Black Forest, snow is not uncommon in winter, even though it has become less and less in recent years due to climate change. About a hundred years ago, the amount of snow here was still considerable. So it is not surprising that the people of the Black Forest are fond of winter sports. Thus, the local ski resorts have many groomed slopes with a total length of 250 kilometers, as well as about 170 ski lifts. Speaking of ski lifts, they were also invented in the Black Forest, namely in 1908 by Robert Winterhalder from Schollach near Eisenbach. He had a mill and the idea that you could be pulled up the mountain by water power. Thus, his lift overcomes thirty-two meters of altitude over a distance of about 280 meters. What many people don't know is that winter sports in Germany started to a large extent in the Black Forest in the first place. First and foremost, there were many ski jumps in the Black Forest. Almost every town had one, even if they were quite simply built and many of them have disappeared in the meantime. The biggest ones today are in Titisee-Neustadt (Hochfirstschanze, 142 meters), Hinterzarten (Rothausschanze, 108 meters) and Schonach (Langenwaldschanze, 106 meters). Titisee-Neustadt hosts annual ski jumping World Cups, while Schonach hosts Nordic combined events. The Hochfirstschanze is not only the largest ski jump in the Black Forest, but also the largest natural ski jump in Germany. It is located directly on a slope of the mountain Hochfirst, which is 1,197 meters high. Hinterzarten hosts an international summer ski jumping event every year. This takes place on the Rothausschanze there. In general, Hinterzarten is a central place of German ski jumping. The importance of Hinterzarten is also evident from the fact that famous Olympic champions come from here. One of them is Georg Thoma. He won gold in the Nordic combined in 1960. The foundation of the ski museum, which is located in the village, also goes back to him. His nephew Dieter Thoma was even more successful in ski jumping and ski flying. He was not only Olympic champion, but also German champion fourteen times. Furthermore, Olympic champion Martin Schmitt is still to be mentioned.

Return deer Can it really jump that far? The stag is the king of the forest. In the Black Forest, as in other parts of Germany, lives the red deer. It can grow up to 1.50 meters tall and up to 2.50 meters long. It can weigh up to 250 kilograms. The typical feature of deer is their antlers, which, however, only the males wear. It is interesting to note that the antlers grow anew every year. It first falls off in spring and develops again until summer, with two more shoots growing each year. Thus, the age of a male deer can be determined by the number of antlers, although it cannot exceed twelve ends. Equally typical for deer are their roaring sounds during the rutting season, which takes place in late summer. Calves are born at the beginning of summer. They grow up in a group with several hinds, one of which leads the herd. The males live mostly solitary. However, the number of red deer in the Black Forest is no longer very high. On the other hand, it plays a not insignificant role in the culture of this region. In the valley Höllental there is the so-called "Hirschsprung" ("stag jump"), a narrow, rocky place where the mountain slopes rise 130 meters above the valley floor. At the base they were only nine meters apart, at the upper rocky edge close to fifty. There is a bronze stag figure with a height of two and a half meters, which reminds of a legend. Right here, a stag is said to have saved itself from a knight who was hunting for it with a mighty leap from one mountainside to the other. I wonder if this is true. In the course of time, however, the place was widened by man. Interesting is also the connection of the deer with the origin of the Danube source river Brigach near St. Georgen. The Brigach rises at the Hirzbauernhof. "Hirz" is the Old High German word for "stag", and indeed, not far from the source of the Brigach, there is a stone with the image of a white stag on it.

Return Wedding couple Always a special celebration A traditional wedding in the Black Forest is different from the celebrations that are common nowadays. It contains several program points. The dances of honor shortly after the actual wedding ceremony are followed by the tipple around noon, with only the bride and groom's closest relatives kept free. This is followed by a wedding dinner that can be described as opulent. After more dancing, a supper is served, usually potato salad with sausages. At midnight the celebration is over. It is followed, however, by a post-wedding ceremony, where the bride and groom are treated to a meal, usually the next day or the next Sunday. Also, the newlyweds move in together only after the wedding. The wedding was a turning point in the costume for women. For unmarried women, the "Bollenhut" hat was red, then black after the wedding. Also the "Schäppelekrone" known from St. Georgen was only allowed to be worn until the marriage. Since both the Bollenhut and the Schäppelekrone belonged to a certain traditional costume, this meant that the bride at a Black Forest wedding was not dressed in white, as is widespread today. There is also a special feature on the subject of weddings in Triberg. With an area of 1.5 square meters, Germany's smallest registry office is located here. Only one registrar and the bride and groom fit into it. Would you prefer to get married in the highest wedding room in Baden-Württemberg? Then that is also possible in the Black Forest, namely in the Feldberg Tower. You don't have a fiancé(e) yet? Then you should travel to Freiburg and visit the old town. A legend says that someone who comes from out of town and accidentally steps into one of the Freiburger "Bächle" (the small channels in the city) will marry a Freiburg citizen in the future.

Return Black Forest Railway Across the Black Forest: With the Black Forest Railway from Offenburg to Constance Do you know the Black Forest Railway? It is one of the most famous mountain lines in Germany and was put into operation in 1873, about 150 years ago. It runs from Offenburg via the Black Forest towns of Hornberg, Triberg, St. Georgen and Villingen to Constance on Lake Constance and is a total of 150 kilometers long. When you travel on the Black Forest Railway, it's quite a steep climb at first. Especially from Hornberg, the line winds its way over 447 meters in altitude until it reaches its highest point in the Sommerautunnel at just over 830 meters above sea level. Of course, a train cannot simply climb such a steep incline. Therefore, when the railroad line was built, care was taken to ensure that the gradient did not exceed 1:50 and that there were no curves with a radius tighter than 300 meters. This was planned so that even long and heavy trains could run on the Black Forest Railway without any problems. In addition, one has tried to lay the tracks always on the southern slope of the mountains, so that in winter the load of the snow is not too strong. Because the train line winds around the mountains several times, there is a place a little below Triberg station where you can see the Black Forest Railway three times on top of each other. The towns of Hornberg and St. Georgen are only twelve kilometers apart as the crow flies, but the railroad line between them is 29 kilometers long. This is due to the fact that it contains two large reversing loops. But probably the most famous thing about the Black Forest Railway is its 39 tunnels. The longest of them is the Sommerautunnel with 1,697 meters. It is located near the town of St. Georgen, which is the highest town on the railroad line. If you take all the tunnels together, they make up a length of 9.5 kilometers. St. Georgen is not only the highest place on the Black Forest Railway, but it also has something that is rare elsewhere: a fire engine that can also travel on rails. At first, of course, the good old steam locomotives ran on the Black Forest Railway. Later, they were replaced by diesel locomotives. In the seventies, the entire line was electrified. For this, the tracks in the tunnels had to be lowered so that they were not too high together with the overhead line. Today, steam locomotives can once again be admired on the line. They are harnessed in front of museum trains that can puff through the tunnels mostly on Sundays in summer. The Black Forest Railway is not the only railroad line that runs through the Black Forest. Besides it, the Höllental Railway from Freiburg to Donaueschingen, which was completed in 1901, is particularly worth seeing. Like the Black Forest Railway, it was planned by Robert Gerwig. At least on the edge of the Black Forest runs the very elaborately routed Sauschwänzlebahn ("sow's tail line"), whose trademark is a "Sauschwänzle" in the figurative sense, namely a tunnel that contains a complete switchback loop, so that the railroad line runs under itself. This really doesn't happen very often, only once in Germany. In addition, part of this line is operated as a museum railroad with steam locomotives.