page_title: Lotterberg
section_title: Amselhof
hierarchical_section_title: Lotterberg / Amselhof
caption_attribution_description: English: The carving of a blackbird above the front door of the Amselhof house. The words "Sicherschlafen und wachen" translate as "Sleep and wake safely"
context_page_description: Lotterberg is a 305 m high hill between the villages of Wolfershausen and Deute in Schwalm-Eder-Kreis, Hesse, Germany.
context_section_description: 'The Amselhof' (English: blackbird courtyard), also known as 'Hof zur Amsel' (English: courtyard to (the) blackbird), is a free-standing farm, which was once a guesthouse, on the eastern side of Lotterberg, on the edge of the forest. A Middle Age ridgeway that passed by Amselhof on the way to Kassel does not exist anymore.
  In 1539 the term Amenschebnborg was first mentioned in a Kassel register, the Kasseler Salbuch, as part of Wolfenhausen's arable land. Amselburg is mentioned in 1558 to be on Lotterberg. The forest that belonged to Amselhof, Amselwald, is ascribed in 1579 as being used by villagers from Haldorf. In the archives of Marburg the 1694 cadastre for Wolfershausen and the related map of the village from 1688 does not show Amselhof, but it mentions that the oldest building of the guesthouse were built between 1694 and 1748. To begin with the guesthouse is mentioned, but not named in the cadastre from this time. At the end of the 17th century, the land lot is referred to as Amselburg.
  The present-day half-timbered house with sandstone foundations was constructed by master craftsman Johann Hermann Alheit in 1776 from the wood of the previous house. Above the door, on the righthand oak beam, there is carving of a blackbird on a branch (see image on the right). In the first half of the 18th century Johannes Umbach ran a guesthouse at the Amselhof. In 1932 Konrad Dittmar took over the 27 morgen [approx. 15 ha] of arable and forestland at Amselhof and later passed it on to his son, Karl Dittmar. At the Amselhof, up until the 1970s, one felt one was back in the 19th century, because there was no electricity, running water, or telephone. Instead, the inhabitants of Amselhof used paraffin lamps in the evenings.
  The Amselhof was the setting for the book Das rote Haus - eine Erzählung aus Hessen (English: the red house — a story from Hesse), written in 1933 by Wilhelm Ide (*18. Februar 1887 in Kassel; †18. Juli 1963 in Marburg).
caption: The carving of a blackbird above the front door of the Amselhof house. The words "Sicherschlafen und wachen" translate as "Sleep and wake safely."
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