Hirschsprung (Black Forest)

The name means "stag leap" and it is a narrow, gorge-like section of the ravine-shaped central portion of the Höllental ("hell valley") with rock faces up to 130 metres high.

The impressive size of this station in what is a very thinly populated region is due to the fact that additional locomotives used to be coupled onto trains here in order to pull or push them up the ramp to Hinterzarten.

[4] In 1856 the parish of Falkensteig erected a wooden stage on the occasion of the wedding of Grand Duke Frederick of Baden and Princess Louise of Prussia .

[5] In 1907 donations enabled a 350 kg and 2.50-metre-high bronze stag to be erected It was designed by a sculptor named Günther and made in the Heidelberg Zinc Ornaments Factory.

[6][5] When, in 2010, the Höllental was closed to traffic for four weeks, the forestry commission used the opportunity to lift the stag off the hill on 6 August using a crane lorry.

The neckerchief that was placed on the stag’s antlers at the re-erection ceremony had been tied on by Landrätin Dorothea Störr-Ritter at the tour auftakt in Himmelreich.

[9] After the 2011 state elections in Baden-Württemberg and the green-red coalition government that resulted, unknown people painted the stag green and red.