Klever Reichswald

The Klever Imperial Forest is approximately 5,100 hectares, the largest contiguous forest in the Lower Rhine and the largest contiguous public state forest in North Rhine -Westphalia. It lies between Goch, Kleve and Kranenburg.

Natural landscape

The Reich Forest lies on the Lower Rhine ridge, which had been once postponed by Ice Age glaciers. The surveys of this ridge protrude out significantly from the relatively flat Rhine valley. 31 of these surveys reach this heights of over 50 meters. The highest is 95 meters, the Rupenberg on the eastern border of the Reich Forest ( hunting 225, near the parking lot at Treppkesweg ). The kingdom is a closed forest of mixed deciduous forest area, which is mainly dominated by its beech - stock. Some areas are also mainly grapes and oak. In subareas falter even coniferous forests. The heart of the Reich Forest is the 580 -hectare nature reserve money mountain with two natural forest with a total size of 49 ha in these areas no management takes place, so that wild plants and animals can develop undisturbed.

For nature conservation importance is the nature reserve, because this is the largest, largely closed, mainly of hardwoods dominated old wood stock in the forest kingdom, which has a prominent significance in the Lower Rhine region. In the realm of forest the black woodpecker, the oriole, the honey buzzard and the stag beetles live.

To the west of the Imperial Forest Klever is connected to the forest areas of the Netherlands.

History

The name Reichswaldhalle is first mentioned in the mid-14th century, for the kingdom of forest was once only a part of the so-called Ketelwaldes. The Ketelwald was a large contiguous forest, which ran from Nijmegen to Xanten and mainly consisted of beech and oak stands. The first traces of human settlement grave mounds from the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages.

The Imperial Forest or the Ketelwald was in Roman times to the state fiscal possession. With the end of the Great Migration came Frankish settlers who hunted in these primeval forests. In the early Middle Ages it belonged to the imperial palace imperial Nijmegen. 980 was the later Emperor Otto III. born in the kingdom of the forest. With the pledge of Nijmegen and the forest in 1247 came to the Count of funds. After several changes of ownership of the forest kingdom in 1418 became part of the Duchy of Cleves.

In February and March 1945, the forest was the scene of the battle in the forest kingdom. After the Second World War, considerable parts of the forest were cleared to (now Kleve ) and Nierswalde ( today Goch ) to gain space for the villages Reichwalde in which mainly expellees were resettled. Another clearing means Rodenwalde ( on the territory of the municipality Bedburg -Hau located ), but on which there is no separate settlement of the same name. For several years, a small memorial at the Triftstraße between Kleve and Goch in these clearings.