page_title: Hohegeiß
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Hohegeiß / History
caption_attribution_description: Hohegeiß um 1900
context_page_description: Hohegeiss is a health resort and winter sports village in the Harz mountains range in Lower Saxony, Germany. Since 1 July 1972 Hohegeiss has been part of the town of Braunlage, in the district of Goslar.
context_section_description: The village name comes from Hogeyz, the name of a wooded region that is documented as early as in 1268. A first chapel was erected in the woods in 1444, a settlement was mentioned in 1528. With the former estates of Walkenried Abbey, Hohegeiss fell to the Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg and was administrated within the former County of Blankenburg as a southeastern exclave of the Principality of Wolfenbüttel. The present-day Protestant church was consecrated in 1704. The former mining area became a popular tourist destination from the late 19th century onwards.
  When the inner German border was drawn in 1945, the former Brunswick territories around Blankenburg were divided between the British and the Soviet occupation zone. Hohegeiss together with Braunlage and the villages of  Neuhof, Walkenried, Wieda, and Zorge became part of Lower Saxony in West Germany. On 1 August 1963 there was an escape attempt on the inner German border at the exit to the village of Hohegeiss by 23-year-old Helmut Kleinert (1940–1963) during which he was shot dead by East German border guards. In 1971 a wooden cross, which had been set up since Kleinert's death, was replaced by a memorial stone with the inscription "Am 01.08.1963 wurde 150 Meter von hier Helmut Kleinert vor dem Überschreiten der Demarkationslinie erschossen" ("On 01.08.1963 Helmut Kleinert was shot dead 150 metres from here before crossing the demarcation line.")
caption: Hohegeiss around 1900
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