Weesen

Weesen is a village belonging to the municipality of Südheide in the north of Celle district in Germany. It lies within the Südheide Nature Park, on the Lüneburg Heath, about 1 km east of Hermannsburg and currently has around 520 inhabitants. Until its incorporation into Hermannsburg as part of the Lower Saxon regional and administrative reforms in 1973, Weesen belonged to the largest municipality in Lower Saxony by area. A stream, the Weesener Bach, flows through the village which, since 1999, has been placed under conservation protection along its entire length. On several of the farms there are still old Treppenspeicher storage barns from the 19th century.

In 1892 a railway line for a narrow gauge was built from Uelzen via Weesen to Celle. The line was about 70 km long. This was a military exercise and the construction gang comprised four Prussian, one Bavarian and four reserve companies. On 14 July 1892 work began on planning the route. Construction lasted from 18 to 26 July. The route was chosen because it had few obstacles and because the heath area was very remote. As a result, the cost of compensation for crop damage could be kept very low. But several small hills and the bogs in particular presented the troops with greater difficulty than they had envisaged. From 28 July to 12 August 1892 regular trains ran on the so-called Feldbahn: fourteen trains per day running in each direction. On 30 July a forest fire broke out and caused significant disruption. The aim of the exercise was to determine how in time of war, materiel could be transported to the front by narrow gauge railway as quickly as possible. In the First World War a narrow gauge line was also built to the Western Front in France. The Chief of the General Staff of the Army, Lieutenant General Alfred Count von Schlieffen inspected the work personally. On 8 August 1892 372 soldiers, 48 NCOs and 20 officers turned up to dismantle the Feldbahn again. From 15 August to 20 August the line was lifted. On 22 September 1892 all the materiel was dismantled, loaded and transported away. In Weesen today there is nothing to indicate that there was a railway, however a road is still called Bahnhof . Near the farm of Severloh, east of the Bornrieth Moor the trackbed of the railway can still be clearly seen at the Citronenberg as a ditch along the side of a track.

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