Gröben has been a district of the town of Ludwigsfelde in the district of Teltow-Fläming in Brandenburg since 31 December 1997. The village, with a population of 349 and an area of 6.91 km² (as of 31 December 2023), is particularly significant for its history, cultural landscape, village church, and the oldest church register in the Mark Brandenburg. The intact cultural landscape of the Nuthe-Nieplitz Nature Park, located just outside Berlin, led to new economic goals after German reunification with the introduction of tourist attractions. The Gröbener Kietz is one of the few remaining original medieval Kietze.
Geography
Geographical location Gröben is located approximately six kilometres southwest of Ludwigsfelde in the north of the Nuthe-Nieplitz Nature Park at the confluence of the Nuthe and Nieplitz rivers, each around ten kilometres from the southwestern city limits of Berlin and the Brandenburg state capital Potsdam. Neighbouring villages are Schiaß, Jütchendorf, and Siethen, which also belong to Ludwigsfelde, as well as Fahlhorst and Tremsdorf in the municipality of Nuthetal. The Gröbener See lake lies to the south of the village.
Two historical maps are presented and explained in a separate section. In addition, a current map shows the location of Gröben in the overall Fläming region southwest of Berlin.
Natural geographical location
Fields, orchard meadows, wet meadows, small hills, flocks of sheep, water mills, and natural ash tree avenues, together with a small-scale alternation of biotopes in the Nuthe-Nieplitz Nature Park, form a tranquil cultural landscape into which the village of Gröben with its lake fits perfectly. Immediately behind the neighbourhood begins the extensive nature reserve Nuthe-Nieplitz-Niederung, which encompasses the Gröbener See lake. The Flachsee is part of a chain of lakes, with the last link being the Siethener See and, before that, the Grössinsee and Schiaßer See to the east. The lakes lie across the Nuthe lowlands in a former glacial drainage channel and are remnants of former meltwater lakes. The nutrient-rich Gröbener See lake is only around 1.50 m deep and covers an area of approximately 24 hectares. It is surrounded by a largely inaccessible shore zone with a wide reed belt and alder groves, scattered pine forests, and species-rich wet meadows. In spring and autumn, the lake serves as a resting place for Nordic wild geese and cranes. Ospreys have their feeding grounds here, and cormorants, herons, and occasionally sea eagles can be seen in the meadows. Pygmy shrews, tree lizards, penduline tits, and marsh harriers seek shelter in the reeds.
Watercourse
The two rivers that give the nature park its name converge between Gröbener Kietz and Jütchendorf; here, the Nieplitz flows into the Nuthe, which in turn flows into the Havel in Potsdam. The upper Nuthetal valley was formed in the middle stage of the Weichselian glaciation around 20,000 years ago as an interglacial valley between the Berlin and Baruth glacial valleys. It divides the gently rolling sand plateau of the Zauche from the ground moraine plateau of the Teltow. Both are located upstream of the rivers' source, the Fläming ridge.
Damp hollows, silt, deeply embedded and thawing dead ice from the Ice Age, and the high groundwater level in the lowlands led to the swamping of large areas. The neighbouring villages of Jütchendorf and Schiaß, which were connected by a road, were, for example, separated by the impenetrable "Große Nuthemoor" (Great Nuthe Moor). The regulation of the two rivers played a decisive role in the drainage work that was begun by the first settlers in the 13th century and continued over centuries. Throughout history, the Nuthe and Nieplitz rivers frequently caused major flooding. This "emergency" caused by the river may have given it its name, as "Noth" is derived from the Old German word "Nuth". The name Nieplitz probably comes from Slavic and means something like "the unnavigable" – in contrast to the navigable Nuthe, which was still up to 40 metres wide in 1880.
Until the 19th century, the Nuthe still flowed in the bed of today's Alte Nuthe directly next to the Gröbener Kietz. About 600 metres north of the Kietz, the Alte Nuthe enclosed an island on which, according to old maps such as the one shown here, the medieval Gröbener Burg stood. After rudimentary drainage by the first settlers, mill dams in the Middle Ages led to the re-swamping of large areas. Between 1772 and 1782, on the initiative of Frederick the Great, an extensive system of inner moats such as the Pfeffergraben and Strassgraben was created, which partially converted the floodplains into the "usable state" demanded by Frederick. The Königskanal, named after Frederick, enabled the considerable volumes of water from the Pfefferfließ to be diverted more quickly past the Nieplitz chain of lakes and directly into the Nuthe. The Königskanal, which served as a flood relief channel for the Nieplitz, began shortly after Stangenhagen, before the Blankensee, and only joined the Nuthe north of Gröben, shortly before Saarmund.
In 1713, at the instigation of the Soldier King Frederick William I, beavers were released into the Nuthe River – a verdict prohibited shooting or hunting beavers and imposed a fine of 200 thalers – and those without means were threatened with being "locked in the stocks", i.e., tied to a post and put in the pillory.
Between 1883 and 1891, the Nuthe and Nieplitz rivers were extensively cleared and straightened, and the resulting drainage deprived the fishermen in the Kietz district of their traditional livelihood. The Alte Nuthe and other old arms of the river were cut off from the watercourse and silted up or are on the verge of silting up. The expansion and straightening of the Nuthe benefited shipping, and log rafting from the densely wooded areas around Löwendorf near Trebbin developed into an important economic factor. The development of new water level regulation techniques using weirs led to the end of shipping and log rafting. The containment and widening of the Nuthe in 1933/1934 prevented summer flooding almost entirely and shaped the current appearance of the Nuthe river with its characteristic rows of trees.
Since 1975, fundamental improvements have been made to the Nuthe catchment area. The drainage measures included widening and deepening the Königsgraben and constructing additional dams. After fertilisers, pesticides, and wastewater from pig farming caused severe water pollution during the GDR era, nature conservation and water protection measures at the beginning of the third millennium led to a significant recovery and improvement in water quality, which approached Class II in 2004, as indicated by a high occurrence of midge larvae.
The Nieplitz, which was also largely canalised in the past, still forms a near-natural river course in its section near its mouth between Grössinsee and its confluence with the Gröbener Kietz, with extensive reed beds and species-rich wet meadows.
History
Foundation and first mention
Thesis of the founding of the house of Ascania The originally triangular dead-end village of Gröben was, according to widespread belief, founded around 1170 as a colony by a family from Gröben who came from the Altmark region as part of the settlement policy pursued by Albrecht the Bear and his son Otto I. The origin of the name Gröben is uncertain. It may derive from the Slavic word Grob’n (grave, ditch, dam), in which case the wealthy Gröben family would have taken the name of their property, the village, as was customary at the time. However, there is also a theory that the family gave the village its name when it was founded around 1170. According to this theory, the family originally took its name from its settlement Gribehne (Grobene, Grebene), located three kilometres northwest of Calbe (Saale).
The first two Brandenburg margraves successfully attempted, through their colonisation policy, to Christianise the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which had been conquered and founded in 1157 and was still largely inhabited by Slavic tribes, and to finally stabilise it after various failed attempts by other German states in the centuries prior. Another important factor in the stabilisation policy was the call for Cistercian monks, who founded the Lehnin Monastery in 1180 in the centre of the Zauche region, around 30 kilometres away, and contributed significantly to the success of the Ascanian policy with their hard work and missionary work.
The idea of establishing an independent aristocratic rule Helmut Assing describes a different sequence of events surrounding the founding of Gröben. According to him, Gröben was indeed founded by the "de Grubene"/"de Grobene"/"von Groeben"/"von Gröben" family, but this did not happen as part of the Ascanian land grab. Assing assumes that Gröben came under Ascanian rule in 1232 at the earliest and that before that, together with the villages of Siethen, Jütchendorf, Fahlhorst, and Ahrensdorf, and later possibly also Klein Beuthen, it formed a short-lived, independent noble dominion. However, Assing dates its foundation to 1190 at the earliest. Another important question here is whether the "von Gröben" were ministerials or nobles. Assing proves, based on the positions in the witness lists of documents in the area of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg, that they were noblemen who, under threat of losing power and influence at their ancestral seat in the sphere of influence of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg (i.e., not the Margraves of Brandenburg), left that ancestral seat near Calbe and established their own noble rule on the outskirts of Teltow. A few years later, they succumbed to the influence and pressure of the neighbouring Ascanian dynasty and became part of the Ascanian March in 1232 at the earliest. In 1232, an Arnoldus de Grebene (Arnold von Gröben) appears as a witness to a document issued by Otto III and John I in the group of ministerials. This is a clear indication of a relationship of dependence on the Ascanian dynasty. The fact that there are no known documents or registers from the period between 1190 and 1232 in which a "von Gröben" plays a role or appears as a witness also supports the theory of independent rule. The documentary mention from 1190 concerns Heinrich von Gröben's request to the Kloster Gottesgnaden monastery near Calbe to reserve a burial place in the monastery for himself and his parents. This request would seem to contradict his intention to leave his ancestral home, but it may have been part of his plan. The year 1170 therefore does not appear to be a viable date for Gröben's founding, especially since there seems to be no actual evidence to support it. According to this theory, Gröben was most likely not founded "as part of the settlement policy pursued by Albrecht the Bear and his son Otto I," but rather independently by noblemen from the archbishopric of Magdeburg, who later came under Ascanian rule. The Gröbener Kietz, founded by Slavs, is significantly older.
First documented mention The first documented mention of Gröben dates back to 1352. After the end of the approximately 170-year Ascanian rule in the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1320 with the death of Henry the Younger, the Wittelsbach/Luxembourg family took over the rule of the Margraviate for a short time before the Hohenzollerns arrived in 1415. In 1352, Margrave Ludwig II maintained a military camp near Gröben. In a document exhibited there, Gröben was mentioned in writing for the first time as "castris prope villam Groeben", meaning a military camp near Gröben. At that time, the Gröben family owned the land as far as Teltow and became one of the most important and powerful vassals of Emperor Charles IV in the Margraviate. The Land Register of Emperor Charles IV from 1375 contained the following entry: