Holzheim

This panoramic board in Holzheim focuses on the eventful history of the border region. The traces lead from the Romans to the Second World War.

This earth wall lined with beech trees is said to be a remnant of a Roman army camp. In some places, the wall and its trench are up to 8 m wide, and can be made out easily in the terrain over a length of about 200 metres. Its vertex is between 1.5 and 2 metres. In an area to the right of the wall, some 700 m long and 400 m wide, there are also said to be remnants of a former fortress. However, that supposition still needs to be confirmed by future excavations. The wall has been listed as historical monument since 6 July 1998. Finds from the immediate vicinity include shoes from a mule and clay fragments, which have been dated back to Roman times.

During the Second World War, Lanzerath was one of the major scenes of combat in the Battle of the Bulge. There are two monuments here to remind us of those events. 

The border between Belgium and Germany is easy to recognise because of the wind turbines on the German side.   There hasn't been any more smuggling since the borders within Europe were opened. After the Second World War, however, bartering of coffee from Belgium against valuable items or everyday objects from Germany was vital for many inhabitants on the German side, and it was also a welcome earner for the Belgian citizens. Goods were smuggled in clothes altered specially for the purpose, in ambulances or in the tyres of lorries. On many occasions, the customs officers were bribed too.

Until 1794, the village of Manderfeld and the surrounding hamlets were part of the electorate of Trier. That historical affiliation is evidenced not only by the name 'Treeschland', but also by the use of the new red sandstone that is so popular on the Moselle. Its red colour is quite different to that of the blue shale, which can be seen in many buildings in the rest of southern East Belgium. This stretch of land was part of the Duchy of Luxembourg until 1795.

The fact that this village name ends in 'rath' indicates that it was one of the so-called clearance settlements, with which the Franks developed new land for settlements from the 5th to the 8th century. The village was mentioned for the first time in 1538 as Weckerode.

Manderfeld is located in the upper Our valley, between the hills of the Schneifel and those at Losheimergraben, surrounded by 17 hamlets and villages. The whole area is excellent for hiking. Some 200 km of signposted routes take you through woods and fields, via ridgeways with wonderful panoramic views and through romantic valleys. Manderfeld is not only popular in the summer; in winter too, this village has a lot to offer, being more than 500 m above sea level – for example cross-country skiing trails and guided snowshoe hikes.

Like the churches of Büllingen, Amel, Thommen and Neundorf, the parish church in Manderfeld may be standing on the foundation walls of a Franconian royal court. The parish church is a rough stone building dating from the 16th century with a single nave. The west tower, however, is considerably older. The coat of arms of the Trier elector Richard von Greiffenclau (on the outside of the tower) points to its having been a donation. Neo-Gothic high altars Following numerous conversion and renovation works on this church during the course of the centuries, the neo-Gothic high altars, some 100 years old, were re-erected at their original location in 2011. Side chapel In the side chapel of this church, there are neo-Gothic statues (1903) of the four evangelists with their typical attributes: Matthew, with the angel (symbolising human nature), Luke, with the bull (a symbol of sacrifice), Mark, with the lion (strength of belief), and John, with the eagle (symbol of the spiritual). Having said that, there are various different interpretations of these attributes. An inscription indicates that the gallery dates back to 1781. Way of the cross In the former cemetery behind the church, there are 14 stations of the cross on man-sized pillars in new red sandstone. The wayside shrines were donated by members of the parish in 1765. The baroque reliefs depict Christ's suffering; each one has the name of the donor on the back. The depiction on the 14th station in the form of a burial group, accommodated in a small building, is unusual. Buildings of that kind are known in the vernacular as dormouse nests.

The origin of this building, which is listed as a historical monument, is not known. However, a Roman basin in the cellar of the farm seems to imply that there was already a settlement here in ancient times. Under Prussian rule, the farm was expanded into an agricultural model business.

The US radar station 'Prüm Air Station', on the heights of the Schneifel, was built in the 1950s and served purposes of communication between NATO, the US Ministry of Defense and the US forces in the nearby military bases at Bitburg and Spangdahlem in the Rhineland-Palatinate. Radar monitoring was the main task of this station. It was not so much a question of keeping an eye on the enemy as one of coordinating the take-off and landing of US aircraft. When the Cold War came to an end, the radar station lost its significance. It was closed in 2004.  

This little village has a long history. It is presumed that the settlement already existed in Roman times, and that the present name was not introduced until later. That is suggested, at least, by the Roman wall, which is outside the village in the direction of Honsfeld. This earth wall lined with beech trees is said to be a remnant of a Roman army camp. There are documents from 1387 evidencing a family of the minor gentry by the name of von Holzheim, whose castle building probably stood here.

The 'Schneifel' is a range of hills in the Eifel of the Rhineland-Palatinate, some 15 km long and 2 km wide. It is a so-called truncated upland which, on account of its high quartz content, was able to resist being ablated by the forces of erosion to some extent. The term refers to a forest aisle or ridgeway, which was very probably used as long ago as in Roman times. The term 'Schnee-Eifel' ('snow-Eifel') for a larger area was not used until the 19th century. The heights of the Schneifel are a former border area. From the Middle Ages onwards, the territories of various different farms, monasteries, estates, bishoprics – and later nation states – bordered on one another. In the Battle of the Bulge, the heights of the Schneifel were the starting point for an unsuccessful German offensive towards Antwerp with thousands of casualties. Remains of the Siegfried Line (dragon's teeth, ruins of bunkers) can still be seen in places. The highest point of the Schneifel, at 697.3 metres above sea level, is the winter sports area 'Schwarzer Mann', the third-highest hill in the Eifel after the Hohe Acht and the Erresberg. The larger-than-life wooden statue of the same name reminds us of the charcoal makers and the charcoal which used to be produced here.

This VHF transmitter mast was erected in 1965 on the Schwarzer Mann near Bleialf, and is 690 metres above sea level. The steel tubular structure, originally 223 metres tall, was shortened to 105 metres in 2010. The shutdown of analogue terrestrial television meant that the full height of the original mast was no longer needed.

This monument is in memory of a moving emigration story. Aged just 12, Christian Elsen from Medendorf left his homeland in 1882 to go and join his uncle, who had emigrated to the USA. In adverse circumstances, he saved up enough to pay for his parents and siblings to cross over to America too, which they duly did ten years after he himself had arrived. At the beginning of the 1920s, he decided to revisit the Eifel and erect a monument in honour of Mary at the place where his parental home had stood. The granite blocks were worked in the USA and transported to today's location by ship, rail and horse-drawn carriage.

Herresbach and the woods that surround it are an invitation to go hiking. The long-distance trail GR 56 also runs through the village. Various viewpoints, in particular the so-called 'Holzauge' ('wood eye'), offer a unique view out over the Our valley, the German-Belgian border region and the Schneifel.

These eight wind turbines are in Heinerscheid in Luxembourg, which is 30 km away.

For reasons of air safety, this transmitter mast is conspicuously painted in orange and white. The steel construction, 100 metres tall, is located between Medell and Wallerode, in a wood on the territory of the municipality of Amel. From here, it ensures reliable transmission of the programmes of the BRF (german-speaking Belgian radio station).