Harz granite

[3] The Harzburg gabbro-norite intrusion forms part of this complex, but has a primary chemistry similar to an island-arc tholeiite, although it shows the effects of large scale assimilation of crustal rocks.

Their market at that time comprised the entire territory of the German Reich, Belgium and the Netherlands.

[5] In 1948, after the war, 30 to 40 quarrymen were working in the Braunlager Granit- und Schotterwerken as well as an unknown number in another firm in Lower Saxony.

The Knaupsholz and Birkenkopf quarries in the GDR and the divisions of the Zureck company in Wernigerode were expropriated on 5 November 1945.

[6] In the early 1950s, the following quarries in the Brocken granite region were listed by Sickenberg (1951): Eckerloch, Schneeloch, Gebbertsberg, Wurmberg, Haserode, Wolfklippen, Großer und Kleiner Birkenkopf, Knaupsholz, Ottofels, Neustätter Hau, Forsthaus Plessenburg and Gelochter Stein.

[9] Ilsestein granite was quarried on the northern boundary of the Harz on the Kleiner Birkenkopf hill near Thale.

Ilsestein granite lies on the northern perimeter of the Harz and is part of the Brocken massif.

These granites are used as solid building stones for bridge construction, walls, door lintels and window sills, staircase steps, flags, façades, gravestones and, as cobbles and hard core, for roads.

In 2009, the remaining quarries at Knaupsholz and Birkenkopf (now closed) were providing granite for the following purposes: Road surfaces, cobbles, walls and bridges in Lower Saxony and North Germany, Magdeburg, Hamburg and Berlin; lock construction and bank reinforcement on the Mittelland and Kiel Canals.

[9] Harz granite has been used for monuments and memorials in Buchenwald, Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen concentration camps; the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin's Tiergarten and the Soviet Cenotaph in Treptow; interior of the Schiller Museum in Weimar; the mining church in Schierke; the Palace of Culture of the GDR; the Deutsche Bank and town hall steps in Wernigerode.