Time stands still and nature remains practically untouched, even luring back creatures that had not been seen for long years. That is what Ray Bugeja found in Saxony-Anhalt, in the north-east of Germany.

Living in communist East Germany – the then German Democratic Republic - must have made everyday life a constant struggle. And the unforgiving weather made it even worse. But where there is will there is a way, and the East Germans were determined to make it through and make it through they did.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989 and German unification a year later, a concerted effort was made so that what, to many, including some Germans themselves, were two separate countries would once again become one.

“After unification, everybody’s life changed but not nature,” says Friedhart Knolle, a scientist at the Harz National Park. And he knows what he is talking about because if nature conservation is his profession and mission in life, research into German history is his passion.

Spanning parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, Harz is the highest mountain range in the north of the country, the summit being the Brocken, which stands at just over 1,140 metres above sea level.

Rugged terrain, regular rainfall and westerly winds from the Atlantic characterise the region, home to a variety of species, some of which would have disappeared altogether were it not for the determination of the park’s rangers.

The lynx, for example, was absent for quite some time until it was successfully reintroduced in 2000 by the Harz National Park and appears to have settled down well. Bats, too, were abandoning the region but conservation efforts over the past years changed all that.

Some scenes for George Clooney’s film The Monuments Men were shot in the old town

Love of nature has a history there. Man-made changes to the natural landscape and the extinction of large animals, like the bear, the wolf and the lynx, made many realise nature was being threatened and, rather than just pay lip service, they rolled up their sleeves to do something about it.

Though, in comparison with the Harz, it is poor in species, the Black Moor, in the Bavarian Rhöne, is the largest bog complex of fens in the Rhöne. It forms part of Natura 2000 and one of the most important raised bogs in central Europe.

RhönschafRhönschaf

Unique in the area is the Rhön-Schafe, or the sheep of Rhön. It has a white coat, white tall legs and a slim black head. “What you see is real hardy sheep,” farm owner Julia Djabalameli says proudly. And hardy they are: they rely on the food produced by the land where they graze, they are 100 per cent fit because they are constantly on the go and they must cope with the tough weather.

As the Rhön species produces about a third less meat than the conventional sheep, not many were interested in breeding them and, in 1957, only 300 of them had remained throughout the whole Federal Republic of Germany. It was only thanks to the idealistic enthusiasm of people like Julia that the species was saved from extinction. Today, there are just over 4,000 of them all over Germany and about 1,600 in the Rhön region.

Julia readily admits she sometimes asks herself whether she is stupid, preferring to continue doing the shepherdess rather than engaging in some more lucrative job. What keeps her there is nature. “I want to make people aware of what nature is all about,” she says.

Schwarzes Moor in summer.Schwarzes Moor in summer.

Nature is outstanding. But so are the cities and towns in the area.

Quedlinburg, for example, is a medieval town on the northern edge of the Harz mountains with a history going back over 1,000 years.

With its narrow, cobblestone streets lined with half-timbered houses – 2,000 of them - time almost stands still in Quedlinburg, the first capital of Germany. Luckily, it was not damaged in the war and the Soviets treated it very well.

Girl power reigned supreme in this Unesco World Heritage site, which was ruled by women for over 800 years, until Napoleon came into the picture in 1802. It was also a woman from Quedlinburg, Dorothea Erxleben, who not only became the first German female to attend a university but she also became the first woman to qualify as medical doctor in Germany in 1754.

Some scenes for George Clooney’s film The Monuments Men were shot in the old town. The film tells the story of WW II platoon that is tasked with rescuing art masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their owners.

Quedlinburg has its own story to tell too about stolen treasures. The 12th century abbey church dedicated to St Servatius has a precious collection of golden chests, religious manuscripts, crystal bottles, ivory combs and jewel-encrusted swords. Much of the treasure, hidden in a mine shaft, disappeared after WWII. Many years later, in 1989, a jewel-encrusted manuscript showed up at an antique dealer’s shop in Switzerland and another went on sale the following year.

Girl power reigned supreme in Quedlinburg, which was ruled by women for over 800 years, until Napoleon came into the picture in 1802

It soon resulted that a US soldier, who was supposedly guarding the treasure when the war ended had sent some of the priceless artefacts to his parents in Texas. When he died in 1980 his siblings decided to sell some of them and a German investigator eventually traced the treasure to a bank in Texas. It took a legal battle and a multi-dollar settlement before the treasures could be returned to Quedlinburg in 1992.

A 45-minute drive will take you to Magdeburg, the capital city of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, which British award-winning actress Helen Mirren refers to as “sexy Anhalt”, possibly because of the way the Germans pronounce the name.

Advent in the courtyards.Advent in the courtyards.

Also known as the City of Otto (after inventor Otto von Guericke and emperor Otto the Great), Magdeburg, situated on the Elbe River, has had its fair share of disasters, natural and man-made.

In 1631, about 20,000 inhabitants were massacred when imperial troops stormed the city during the Thirty Years War. Magdeburg also sustained heavy damage during bombing in WWII. A night raid by the RAF on January 16, 1945 destroyed most of the city and official figures put the number of dead at 16,000. Its infrastructure also suffered badly during the Soviet occupation. More recently, in 2013, floods wrought havoc and a state of emergency was declared. The water rose about five metres above normal, forcing about 23,000 residents to abandon their homes.

Whether fact or fiction, the people of Magdeburg insist that Broadway in New York actually originated from their city. This happened, they claim, when, in 1607, Magdeburg traders decided it had become too expensive living there and they first moved to Hamburg and then on to New Amsterdam, the Dutch settlement at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in the US.

Probably feeling homesick, they organised their outlets the same way they had been in Germany and called the road from where they operated Breedeweg. In Magdeburg it was Breiter (broad) Weg (way).

New Amsterdam eventually became New York and Breedeweg Broadway. Magdeburg, which will be European Capital of Culture in 2025, has managed to transform itself from a centre of heavy mechanical engineering into a modern science and service location. The city and, indeed, the whole surrounding region are rich in culture and nature, which, incidentally, are the two central elements at the core of the Destination Germany brand.

It’s all about nature because nature attracts people. The eastern part of Germany has a lot to offer in that sense: it’s all nature on the eastern front.

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