The Truschbaum is up near Griesdeck on Elsenborn’s Lagerstrasse. Where today’s tree stands there used to be an ancient beech which, according to the tradition, lived to be approximately 200 years old. For a very long time, that tree presumably stood out as the only one in the landscape and served as a striking landmark for hikers and smugglers in the Fens.
Its appearance put one in mind of a bunch of flowers. The vernacular suggests that that was why it was given the name ‘Trusch’, for in the Elsenborn dialect, ‘Trusch’ means about the same as ‘bunch’. Scientists, by contrast, say that ‘Trusch’ denotes the stony ground in which the tree stands. ‘Trusch’ is the name of a large Elsenborn cadastre which extends all the way up to the Truschbaum. The fact is that in old German, ‘d’Rusch’ means rough, stony ground.
As long ago as 1830, the Truschbaum was described as ‘completely hollowed out inside’. Numerous attempts to save it were brought to an abrupt end by a severe winter storm in January 1984. However, so that this landmark of Elsenborn could continue to exist in spite of that, a new European beech was planted in the same place in November 1984. Nine of the boundary stones (1791) from the former Jülich-Luxembourg border, which had originally stood on what is now the military training ground, were re-erected around the Truschbaum for their own protection.
