History Camp at Hötensleben Border Monument

Grasping History with Your Own Hands

The Hötensleben Border Monument in the municipality of Hötensleben (part of Sommersdorf/Westliche Börde administrative district) is one of the most important memorial sites of the inner-German border. After reunification, citizens preserved an authentically maintained segment of the former GDR border as a memorial site spanning approximately 350 meters: barrier systems, watchtowers, expanded metal fencing, patrol paths. Today, the site is managed by the Grenzdenkmalverein e.V. Hötensleben (Hötensleben Border Monument Association) in cooperation with the Marienborn Memorial for German Division.

Once a year in August, the association organizes the History Camp – a two-week international youth work camp where young people from Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, France, and other countries work together at the monument, attend workshops, and undertake excursions. The focus is on maintaining the authentic memorial site: vegetation control, minor restoration work on the historical fence elements, documentation of the site.

More Than Work — A Place of Learning

The work camp is also an educational program. The program includes visits to the training workshops of the nearby open-cast mine, the Schöningen Spears (the oldest fully preserved hunting weapons in humanity), the Federal Archives in Friedrichsdorf, and the Marienborn Memorial. Several generations meet: contemporary witnesses, former border guards, mayors of border municipalities, firefighters, traffic educators. The young people also participate in the Rock am Denkmal festival, which takes place on the festival grounds next door during the camp period.

Hötensleben and the Green Belt

The border monument is part of the “Green Belt” along the former inner-German border – a biotope corridor that is now maintained as a cross-border nature conservation area. Those who accompany the work camp learn not only history but also landscape conservation and biodiversity management. In the state of Saxony-Anhalt, which has the largest share of the Green Belt with over 340 kilometers, Hötensleben is one of the central learning sites for German-German history and ecological remembrance work.