Friedenseiche

The Friedenseiche stands beside the road Zum Riesenfelde in Evestorf, a village in the Wennigsen municipality south-west of Hannover. It is a single American red oak planted in 1913 to mark the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig. The spot once held the village’s clay pits, now long filled in and turned into a children’s playground. The tree recalls the great German memorials raised in 1913, especially the giant Völkerschlachtdenkmal in Leipzig. When the Scharnhorst monument in Wennigsen was unveiled that same year, beacon fires were lit on every hilltop around the Deister range. Half a century earlier, in 1863, a similar oak and stone had been placed in the nearby village of Egestorf and is now protected as a natural monument. Visitors find the oak on the edge of the settlement, close where the Bredenbecker Beeke and Wennigser Mühlbach join to form the Ihme. A simple metal sign on the playground fence records the date 1913 and the tree’s purpose. The surrounding playing fields and quiet lanes give a peaceful setting for this quiet piece of history.