Altenwalder Burg

The Altenwalder Burg stands on the Altenwalder Höhe above the Karl-Grote-Platz in Altenwalde, a district of Cuxhaven in Lower Saxony. It was a Germanic hilltop fort built on an old Saxon burial site used from the 3rd to 8th centuries. The site later became a Frankish-Carolingian fortress, probably the northernmost of its kind, constructed after the Saxon Wars between 772 and 804. The fort covered an area of 60 by 90 metres and was surrounded by earthen ramparts lined with wood and a ditch. It served to protect the nearby harbour of Wolde, a trade route to Holstein and the Baltic, and to guard against Viking raids along the coast. During the reign of Emperor Louis the Pious it passed to the Archbishop of Bremen, though it remained in use for only a short time. By the 13th century it was recorded alongside Wolde, and its surviving walls were later damaged by the two world wars. Today the main rampart is still visible, rising 1.5 metres above ground with an 8-metre base and a ditch 2.4 metres wide and 1 metre deep. A smaller outer rampart lies to the west. The site offers a quiet place to walk among the remains of the old fort and the traces of its earlier use as a burial ground.