The best MTB trails around Besitz

Anyone visiting the Stixer Wanderdüne can also plan for the Laaver Moor and Germany's largest oak stump as a natural monument. The hilly forest area is idyllic and relaxing for the soul. At the Laaver Moorsee, a picnic bench with a table invites you to linger. On 31.07.26 it was nice and clean, I hope it stays that way and that visitors always take their rubbish with them.

Laaver Moor See is a great place to enjoy nature and silence

A detour from the circular trail to the ancient and mighty Hutebuche is worthwhile. Hudewälder (forests), also called Hutewald (forests), are an ancient form of forest management in which livestock were driven into the forest for grazing ("hutting"). The pigs and cattle ate beechnuts, acorns, and herbs, thus preventing natural forest regeneration. Only a few, now very old and mighty trees with spreading crowns remained standing. However, another traditional farming forest use, the "Krattwald" (forest), seems to have led to the emergence of this Hutebuche. According to this, it was "cut back to the stump" every 15 to 20 years, resulting in increasingly voluminous new shoots. The harvest had a variety of uses: the bark was used for tanning, the wood as building material and fuel, and the leaves as fodder and bedding for livestock. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutebaum

With shelter, waste bins and information boards

When you enter the village from Kuhlenfeld, look to the left and you will see this great view

With an area of around six hectares, the Laaver Moor is the largest remaining raised bog in the Elbe valley. It is fed exclusively by rainwater, which is why it is also called a rainwater bog.

At midnight between April 30th and May 1st, 1976, Michael Gartenschläger is killed by East German border guards. He is shot by a special Stasi commando as he tries to approach the border to the west. Gartenschläger has carefully planned his action at the border of Schwarzenbek in Lauenburg. The GDR Foreign Minister, Oskar Fischer, denies that there are automatic shooting devices at the border. Gartenschläger wants to prove that this is a lie. In March and April he crawls to the border and dismantles two of the SM70 automatic shooting devices. He shows these to the magazine Der Spiegel and in this way the GDR leadership's fraud is exposed. When Gartenschläger knows that new SM70s have been installed, he sneaks back to the border on the evening of April 30th. Together with two helpers, he wants to get one of the new automatic shooting devices that is to be exhibited in West Germany. But he does not know that the East German border police have been tipped off. This is why a special commando from the Ministry for State Security is able to take up positions. They are prepared to shoot Gartenschläger, who is now a thorn in the side of the GDR government. In the following years, Michael Gartenschläger becomes a symbol of the inhumanity of the GDR. A cross is erected shortly afterwards in the village of Bröthen: the Gartenschläger Cross. Today there is a memorial here. www.vimu.info/fb.jsp?id=for_1_9_17_fb_gartenschlaeger_dk_doc&lang=de&u=general&flash=true

There is a memorial plaque for Friedegart Belusa here. Friedegart Belusa (1915-1996), an East Prussian, looked after the railway mission for more than 25 years, a joint facility of the Protestant and Catholic churches. The station in Büchen was not a normal train station. For hundreds of thousands of people, it became the first port of call in the West. Between 1955 and 1959, almost a quarter of a million emigrants came, as well as 50,000 Berlin children who were supposed to recover in Schleswig-Holstein and, from 1964, pensioners from the GDR who were allowed to travel to the West to visit. Up to 160 adults and 140 young people, most of them volunteers, distributed food and drinks, helped the disabled, made phone calls to authorities and let travelers stay overnight. Friedegart Belusa was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 1982 for her services. A street in Büchen has also been named after her. (Source: Lauenburger Landeszeitung from 24.8.2014)