Zellerfeld, Harz Mountains, Germany

Four hours on the autobahn north of Bamberg brought us to the Hartz Mountains in Lower Saxony, in the heart of Germany.  The mountains cover an area 90 km long and 30 km wide and straddle what was previously the border between East and West Germany.  Mining for copper, silver and lead began here more than a thousand years ago with one of the principal mining centres being the twin town of Clausthal-Zellerfeld.  But this is just one of many small towns in the Harz region now cocooned within spruce forests and inter-connected by winding forest roads.  Two of the towns, Goslar and Quedlinburg, have been World Heritage listed due to their magnificent historical old town centres, their ancient “half-timbered” houses, and their nationally significant castles and palaces dating from the era when current day Germany was a collection of separate principalities ruled by Kings and Princes.

We based ourselves in the old-fashioned resort town of Bad Grund and spent a few days touring around the Harz.  We had a particular interest in Zellerfeld and returned there several times.  In the late 1840s the local mining industry fell on hard economic times; its underground mines had reached such depths that the costs of production were high and uncompetitive, at a time when world oversupply had depressed metal prices.  Zellerfeld was then within the Kingdom of Hanover and the Hanoverian authorities encouraged and assisted mining families to leave the Harz and emigrate overseas, particularly to South Australia.  One of those families was Heinrich and Friederike Spohr and their seven children.  It was obviously a huge, emotionally wrenching time in their lives – they knew when they set out that they would never see Zellerfeld or the Harz again, and their welfare in the new world was far from assured. But it was certainly good for me that they did make the voyage, for had they not, I would never have been born.  Heinrich and Friederike were my great-great grandparents.  Along with 260 other emigrants, the family set sail from Hamburg on 5 October 1854 on the sailing ship Johann Cesar and arrived at Port Adelaide 84 days later on 1 January 1855.

We spent a couple of hours inspecting the excellent Zellerfeld mining museum (“Oberharzer Bergwerksmuseum”), and on our last day in the Harz, chanced upon the Thursday night famers’ market underway in Zellerfeld as we passed through on our way back to Bad Grand after spending the day in Quedlinburg.  We stopped for awhile to mingle with the friendly Zellerfeld crowd and to try the roast pork and herb rolls, beer and apple strudel while listening to the enthusiastic nostalgia band performing in front of the museum.