The culture and history of the Rur-Eifel region does not hide behind stone monuments and historic documents. Trace them in legends, in speaking place names, in the dialects changing from place to place and in the landscape, which also bears scars of the past despite all of its beauty. History is lively here.
Forests, calmness and pure air shape the image of the Rur-Eifel region. Hard to imagine that caustic charcoal smoke cauterised the lungs and the noise of hammer mills sounded through the valleys. The time of prosperity of the Eifel iron industry becomes lively in the Kalltal charcoal manufactory. Take the historic hiking trail in Simonskall to get there.
Vast resources of wood and soft water also attracted the paper industry from the 16th century on between Obermaubach and Jülich. At the beginning of the 20th century, a system of reservoirs was established for flood protection, for safeguarding of energy production as well as for supply of drinking water and for the industry, with Lake Rursee as the second-largest reservoir in Germany. The Art-Nouveau water power station from 1904 at the reservoir of Heimbach is worth a visit with regard to architecture and hydraulic engineering. At that time it was the greatest storage power station of the world and even today electricity generator for almost 8,000 households.
Although the many ancient castles appear to be idyllic today, they are evidence of less idyllic history. The earls of Jülich, who resided in the castle of Nideggen for instance, had not been peaceloving at all. They let the Rur-Eifel region be an arena of power struggle with the archbishops of Cologne. This is just one chapter of the long history of warlike operations which started with the Roman military, continued in the Franconian Empire and hit their peak in World War II. The American army got over the Eifel mountain range around Hürtgenwald in 1944 with disastrous losses on both sides. More American soldiers lost their lives in the “All Soul’s Day battle” than during the whole Vietnam war. The peace museum in Vossenack, the path of remembrance, the military cemeteries in Hürtgen, Vossenack and Mariawald document these awful incidents of the Eifel.
