The Brocken, or Blocksberg, is the highest peak (1142 meters) in the Germany, between the rivers Weser and Elbe. Despite its relatively low altitude, it tends to have snow cover from September to May, and it is shrouded in mists and fogs up to 300 days of the year. Its climate is similar to mountains closer to 2000m high.

The peak has long been associated in local legend with witches and devils, dating back before the mountain's mention in Faust.

Today the Brocken is part of a national park, and is home to a historic botanical garden of mountain plants, founded in 1890. A narrow gauge steam train can take visitors from Wernigerode to the railway station at the top, but there are also numerous hiking trails. The Brocken is an important site for FM-radio and TV broadcasting. The old TV tower has an observation deck, open for tourists. Further informations: Transmitter Brocken.

20th Century History

The summit of the Brocken, showing the transmitters

On this mountain the world's first television tower was built in 1935; it began by broadcasting the "Deutsche Reichspost". It carried the first television broadcast of the Olympics, with the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin. It continued functioning until September, 1939, when broadcasting was suspended as World War II began.

The Brocken was bombed by Allied forces on April 17, 1945. The Brocken Hotel and the weather station were completely destroyed, but the television tower was not. American forces used the installation from 1945 to 1947. Before the Americans left the Brocken in 1947, they disabled the rebuilt weather station and the television tower and took all interesting technology with them.

From 1973 to 1976 a new modern television tower was built, near the old one, for the second GDR-TV. Today this tower is used for the second German TV station Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF).

Beginning in 1957, the Brocken was considered a security zone, and after construction of the Berlin Wall began on August 13, 1961 it was named a military high security zone and turned into a fortress. Due to its high altitude the station was also used to spy on communication signals from the surrounding area. Border troops were quartered at the Brocken railway station, and the Soviet army used a large portion of territory. The Stasi (East German secret police) used the television 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. Build with 2,318 sections, each one 2.4 tons and 3.60 meters high. The wall has since been dismantled, as have the Russian barracks and the domes of their listening posts.

The Brocken Spectre or Brocken Bow

Mountaineers have occasionally been spooked by a strange apparition: a towering, shadowy figure looming out from the mist, its head sheathed in shimmering rings.

The Brocken Spectre appears when the sun is low behind a climber who is looking down from a ridge or peak into mist. The climber's shadow is projected forward through the mist, often in an odd triangular shape due to perspective. The spectre appears to be huge because the mist obscures the reference points by which an observer can judge its size, and because the shadow falls on water droplets of varying distances from the eye, confusing depth perception. The "ghost" can appear to move (sometimes quite suddenly) because of the movement of the cloud layer. The glow and rings are a "glory", a circular rainbow-like phenomenon centered directly opposite the sun.

This type of "spectre" can appear on any misty mountainside (or even from an aircraft), but the frequent fogs and low-altitude accessibility of the Brocken have created a local legend.

Literary mentions

The Brocken was famously described in Goethe's Faust (written in 1808) as the center of revelry for witches on Walpurgis Night (April 30; the eve of St. Walpurga's Day on May 1).

Now to the Brocken the witches ride;

The stubble is gold and the corn is green;

There is the carnival crew to be seen,

And Squire Urianus will come to preside.

So over the valleys our company floats,

With witches a_farting on stinking old goats.

Goethe may have gained inspiration from two rock formations on the mountain's summit, the Teufelskanzel (Devil's Pulpit) and Hexenaltar (Witches' Altar).

Another famous visitor on the Brocken was author Heinrich Heine. He wrote the book Harzreise (A Harz Journey). He says: "The mountain somehow appears so Germanically stoical, so understanding, so tolerant, just because it affords a view so high and wide and clear. And should such mountain open its giant eyes, it may well see more than we, who like dwarfs just trample on it, staring from stupid eyes."

Other Mentions

The heavy metal band Fates Warning titled their debut album Night on Brocken. The title track retells the Witches Sabbath on Walpurgis Night. The band's second album is called The Spectre Within _ the title is probably inspired by the Brocken Spectre, but does not allude to it directly.

The Cradle of Filth song "Born in a Burial Gown" (off the album Bitter Suites to Succubi) contains an obvious allusion to the Brocken's history as a witch gathering-place.

"Walpurgis sauntered in the skies", followed later in the song with "Then at once as Brocken's peak tried once concealing hell..."