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The Brocken (), also sometimes referred to as the Blocksberg, is a mountain near Schierke in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, between the rivers Weser River and Elbe. The highest peak in the Harz mountain range, and in Northern Germany, it is subalpine, yet has a microclimate resembling that of mountains nearly higher. The elevation above its tree line tends to have snowcover from September to May, and mists and fogs shroud it up to 300 days a year. The mean annual temperature is only . It is the easternmost mountain in northern Germany; the next prominent elevation directly to its east would be in the Ural Mountains in Russia.
The Brocken has always played a role in legends and has been connected with and ; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe took up the legends in his two-part tragic 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 Brocken Garden of about 1,600 alpine mountain plants. A narrow-gauge steam railway, the Brocken Railway, takes visitors to the railway station at an elevation of .
FM-radio and television broadcasting make major use of the Brocken. The old television tower, the Sender Brocken, is now used as hotel and restaurant. It also has an observation deck, open to tourists.
Somewhat to the north below the summit of the Brocken is a reservoir, the Brockenteich, constructed in 1744. On or near the mountain are the source areas of the rivers Bode, Ecker, Ilse and Oder. The rounded summit of the Brocken is treeless, but vegetated with .
Before 1989 the height of the Brocken was recorded in almost all the relevant maps and books as (). A survey of the summit at the beginning of the 1990s based on the current reference system, however, gave the height as . In order to provide a reference point for the old data, granite boulders were set in the mid-1990s on the highest point of the Brocken to a height of approximately 1143 m, and a benchmark of "1142 m" was established on them. www.harzlife.de accessed on 13 July 2010.
Only in recent geological times, since the Tertiary period, did the typical, rounded, spheroidal weathering of granite outcrops and granite boulders of the Brocken take place. Such are very rare in Central Europe outside the Alps and are subject to conservation measures. They originated mainly under periglacial conditions, i.e. during the course of the , and their retreat. Today's blockfields of Brocken granite, as well as other rocks in the Harz National Park, particularly in the Oker valley, are therefore at least 10,000 years old. Physical weathering, such as frost shattering, has played a key role in their formation, resulting in giant piles of loosely stacked rocks. In 2006, the granite blockfields of the Brocken, together with 76 other interesting geotopes, were designated as a "National Geotope".Friedhart Knolle, Béatrice Oesterreich, Rainer Schulz und Volker Wrede: Der Harz. Geologische Exkursionen. Perthes-Exkursionsführer, Justus Perthes Verlag Gotha, Gotha 1997
Due to its significant height difference compared with the surrounding terrain the Brocken has the highest precipitation of any point in northern central Europe, with an average annual precipitation (1961–1990) of . Its average annual temperature is . DWD – Klimadaten Mittelwerte accessed on 8 October 2010
The Brocken weather station has recorded the following extreme values: 110 Jahre Wetterbeobachtungen auf dem Brocken accessed on 8 October 2010
Amongst the typical species of the Brocken that are rarely if ever found elsewhere in North Germany and which occur above about () are the variant of the alpine pasqueflower known as the Brocken flower or Brocken anemone ( Pulsatilla alpina subsp. alba), like the Brocken hawkweed ( Hieracium negrescens) and the alpine hawkweed ( Hieracium alpinum), ( Anthoxanthum), the lady's mantle ( Alchemilla), the common tormentil ( Potentilla tormentilla), the Clubmoss ( Diphasiastrum alpinum), the lichens, Iceland moss ( Cetraria islandica) and reindeer lichen ( Cladonia rangiferina). The crowberry is also referred to here as the Brocken myrtle ( Brockenmyrte).
On the around the summit of the Brocken there are e.g. , and the dwarf birch ( Betula nana).
The viviparous lizard occurs on the Brocken in a unique, dark-colored variant, Lacerta vivipara aberr. negra. The common frog ( Rana temporaria) can also be found here. Insects are very numerous. There are many beetles including such as Amara erratica, and hundreds of species of butterfly. The large white here produces only one generation per year compared with two in the lowlands.
Some mammal and bird species that occur here are relics of the ice age, including the northern bat ( Eptesicus nils soni), the alpine shrew ( Sorex alpinus) and the ring ouzel.
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 geodesy surveying of the Kingdom of Hanover.A comprehensive account of this famous Gaussian survey may be found, for example, in Charles Kittel et al., Berkeley Physik Kurs 1, Mechanik, 5., verbesserte Auflage, Brunswick/Wiesbaden, 1991, p. 5, ( Scan at GoogleBooks) A measurement carried out by the military staff of Prussia in 1850 found the Brocken's height to be at its present level of . 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 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 (). Its gauge is . In 1935 the 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 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 United States troops. As part of the exchange of territory (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 a military exclusion zone and was therefore no longer open to public access. 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 Union 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 stations, which could capture radio traffic in almost all of Western Europe. 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 Stasi in the East Germany. The listening posts were codenamed "Yenisei" and "Urian". Objekt URIAN – Abhörstation Brocken auf lostplaces.de Between 1973 and 1976 a new modern television tower was built for the second channel of the GDR's television service, the Deutscher Fernsehfunk. Today it is used by the public ZDF (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, each one in weight and high. The whole area was not publicly accessible until 3 December 1989. The wall has since been dismantled, as have the Russian barracks and the domes of their listening posts. Today the old tower beside the lodge again is home to a weather station of the Deutscher Wetterdienst.
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, beginning on 3 December 1989 the Brocken was again open to the public during a demonstration walk. With German reunification there was a gradual reduction in border security facilities and military installations from 1990. The last Russian soldier left the Brocken on 30 March 1994. The Brocken summit was renaturalised at a cost of millions of euros. It is now a popular tourist destination for visitors to the Harz.
As a protected area since 1939 and due to the decades of restricted access the unique climate of the Brocken provided outstanding conditions. The massif is partly still covered with primary forest extremely rare in Germany. It provides perfect conditions for endangered and nearly extinct species like the Eurasian lynx, and . The Brocken was therefore declared part of a national park in 1990.
As far as the origin of the name is concerned, there are several interpretations: In the town records ( Stadtbuch) of Osterwieck an entry for the Brocken was found in the year 1495 under the Latin name of mons ruptus, which means "broken hill". Its Low German name, broken, as the mountain had become named in 1176 in the Saxon World Chronicle and also in English language, means "broken". On the one hand, this explanation of its meaning can be attributed to the fact that the two mountains, "Kleiner Brocken" and "Großer Brocken", were formed by the breakup of a single massif. On the other hand, its meaning may refer to the serious erosion of the mountain. In other words, it refers to the fact that the Brocken was eroded or "broken down" to its present size.C. E. Nehse: Der Brocken und seine Merkwürdigkeiten. 1840
But the most likely derivation of the name comes from the shape of the mountain as a whole. A brocken in German is a large, shapeless mass. The size of the Brocken may thus have given it its name. Since the term "block" has a similar meaning, this could also be the derivation of its alternative name, the Blocksberg. The true origin of the name Blocksberg, however, should not be seen as "block" in the sense of "mass", but rather the German word block (as in block of wood) in witchcraft.Eduard Jacobs: Der Brocken in Geschichte und Sage. Pfeffer, Halle 1879
Another theory holds that the name "Brocken" is derived from bruch, a word used in northern Germany for bog or moorland, which commonly used to be spelt as bruoch or brok. It is however doubtful that this fact was primarily responsible for its name. Another possibility is that its name is derived from the fields of boulders strewn over the summit and the slopes of the mountain. This derivation for the name "Brocken" is, however, unlikely because such blockfields are also found on other mountains in the Harz. Moreover, the regions concerned were hardly known at the time when the term was used. Another presumption is based on the reference in a letter written in 1490 by Count Henry of Stolberg-Wernigerode, where he uses the term Brackenberg. However the suggestion that this referred to old, unusable timber, which was called bracken, is disputed.
At the summit is the Brockenhaus with a museum on the history of the mountain and the Brocken Garden (a botanical garden), which is managed by the Harz National Park. In addition there are restaurants and the Brocken Hotel, which is run by the Brocken publican ( Brockenwirt), Hans Steinhoff. Important publicans in the past included Johann Friedrich Gerlach from 1801 to 1834, Carl Eduard Nehse between 1834 and 1850, who brought out a map of the Brocken in 1849 and the Brocken Register ( Brockenstammbuch) in 1850, as well as Rudolf Schade from 1908 to 1927, who considerably increased the repute and the size of guest facilities on the Brocken. The area around the Brocken is especially popular with hikers. The Goethe Way ( Goetheweg) is a well known trail that leads to the summit of the Brocken. It is named after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who more-or-less followed this route in 1777. Many paths lead to the local towns of Schierke, Braunlage and Sankt Andreasberg. The Harz Witches' Path also runs from the Brocken eastwards to Thale and westwards via Torfhaus and Altenau to Osterode. The "Bad Harzburg Devil's Path" runs from the Brocken to Bad Harzburg. also use the trails.
From Schierke a metalled road leads to the summit, Höhenprofil der Brockenstraße (mit Anschluss bis Elend) which is used by horse-drawn wagons, as well as bicycle touring and racing bike cyclists. Because of the situation in the national park, vehicles with internal combustion engines are only allowed with special permission.
There are also hiking paths to Brocken from Schierke, Wernigerode and Ilsenburg.
Worthy of special mention is the bearer of the Badge of Honour of Saxony-Anhalt, Benno Schmidt (born 1932) – also known as Brocken Benno – of Wernigerode, who has climbed the mountain since 1989, almost daily, with more than 8,888 ascents (as of September 2020) and whose feat has been registered in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Since 2004, the Brocken Challenge, an ultra marathon from Göttingen to the Brocken summit, has been staged in February each year. The proceeds from this event go to charity. The runs are conducted in accordance with the rules of the national park.
The "Brocken Climb" from Göttingen to the Brocken has taken place annually since 2003. More than 300 people take part in these two-day hikes in June.
In early May each year the Braunschweig-Brocken Ultra Run takes place with 2 × legs spread over two days. The participants run from Braunschweig to Schierke, cross the Brocken, overnight in Schierke and run back again the next day. Overall, it is therefore a race.
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