page_title: Brocken
section_title: Ascent, construction and use
hierarchical_section_title: Brocken / History / Ascent, construction and use
caption_attribution_description: Die Brockenbahn am Heinrich Heine Weg (ehem. Panzerstr.). Im Hintergrund der Brockengipfel mit Sendeturm und Brockenhaus.
context_page_description: The Brocken, also sometimes referred to as the Blocksberg, is the highest peak of the Harz mountain range and also the highest peak of Northern Germany; it is located near Schierke in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt between the rivers Weser and Elbe. Although its elevation of 1,141 metres is below alpine dimensions, its microclimate resembles that of mountains of about 2,000 m. The peak above the tree line tends to have a snow cover from September to May, and mists and fogs shroud it up to 300 days of the year. The mean annual temperature is only 2.9 °C. It is the easternmost mountain in northern Germany; travelling east in a straight line, the next prominent elevation would be in the Ural Mountains in Russia.
  The Brocken has always played a role in legends and has been connected with witches and devils; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe took up the legends in his play Faust. The Brocken spectre is a common phenomenon on this misty mountain, where a climber's shadow cast upon fog creates eerie optical effects.
  Today the Brocken is part of the Harz National Park and hosts a historic botanical garden of about 1,600 alpine mountain plants.
context_section_description: The first ascent of the Brocken was documented in 1572 by the physician and botanist, Johannes Thal from Stolberg, who in his book Sylva Hercynia described the flora of the mountain area. In 1736 Count Christian Ernst of Stolberg-Wernigerode had the Wolkenhäuschen ("Clouds Cabin") erected at the summit, a small refuge that is still preserved. He also had a mountain lodge built at the southern slope, named Heinrichshöhe after his son Henry (Heinrich) Ernest. The first inn on the Brocken summit was built around 1800.
  Between 1821 and 1825 Carl Friedrich Gauss used the line-of-sight to the Großer Inselsberg in the Thuringian Forest and the Hoher Hagen mountain near Göttingen for triangulation in the course of the geodesic survey of the Kingdom of Hanover.
  A measurement carried out by the military staff of Prussia in 1850 found the Brocken's height to be at its present level of 1141.1 metres. After the first Brocken lodge had been destroyed by a fire, a new hotel opened in 1862. The Brocken Garden, a botanical garden, was laid out in 1890 by Professor Albert Peter of Göttingen University on an area of 4,600 m² (50,000 sq ft) granted by Count Otto of Stolberg-Wernigerode. It was Germany's first Alpine garden.
  The narrow gauge Brocken Railway was opened on 27 March 1899. Brocken station is one of the highest railway stations in Germany lying at a height of 1,125 m above NN. Its gauge is 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 ³⁄₈ in). In 1935 the Deutsche Reichspost made the first television broadcast from the Brocken using a mobile transmitter and, in the following year, the first television tower in the world was built on the mountain; carrying the first live television broadcast of the Summer Olympics in Berlin. The tower continued functioning until September 1939, when the authorities suspended broadcasting on the outbreak of World War II.
  In 1937 the Brocken, together with the Wurmberg, Achtermann and Acker-Bruchberg were designated as the Upper Harz (Oberharz) nature reserve.
  During an air attack by the United States Army Air Forces on 17 April 1945 the Brocken Hotel and the weather station were destroyed by bombing. The television tower, however, survived. From 1945 until April 1947, the Brocken was occupied by US troops. As part of the exchange of territorial (specified at the Yalta Conference) the mountain was transferred to the Soviet occupation zone. Before the Americans left the Brocken in 1947, however, they disabled the rebuilt weather station and the television tower.
  The ruins of the Brocken Hotel were blown up in 1949. From 1948 to 1959 part of the Brocken was reopened to tourists. Although a pass was required, these were freely issued. From August 1961 the Brocken, which lay in East Germany's border zone, immediately adjacent to West Germany, was declared an out-of-bounds area and was therefore not open to the public. Extensive military installations were built on and around the summit. The security of the area was the responsibility of the border guards of the 7th Schierke Border Company, which was stationed in platoon strength on the summit. For accommodation, they used the Brocken railway station. The Soviet Red Army also used a large portion of territory. In 1987, the goods traffic on the Brocken Railway ceased due to poor track conditions.
  The Brocken was extensively used for surveillance and espionage purposes. On the summit were two large and powerful listening posts. One belonged to Soviet military intelligence, the GRU and was also the westernmost outpost of the Soviets in Germany; the other was Department III of the Ministry for State Security in the GDR. The listening posts were codenamed "Yenisei" and "Urian". Between 1973 and 1976 a new modern television tower was built for the second channel of the GDR-TV. Today it is used by the public Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) television network. The Stasi (East German secret police) used the old tower until 1985, when they moved to a new building – now a museum. To seal the area, the entire Brocken plateau was then surrounded by a concrete wall, built from 2,318 sections, e
caption: View of the Brocken from the Heinrich Heine Way. In the foreground the Brocken Railway (2008)
exif: {}