Ilsestein

Offering a scenic view over the Ilse valley to the Brocken massif, the highest mountain of the range, it is today a popular tourist destination.

[2] Around 1000 AD, a small counter-castle was erected on the Ilsestein immediately after the conversion of the former Saxon fortress of Elysynaburg into Ilsenburg Abbey by the Bishops of Halberstadt.

The count had served as adjutant of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia and the monument commemorates his comrades who fell in the German campaign of the Napoleonic Wars.

For the centenary of the Möckern battle, on 18 October 1913, a memorial plaque was unveiled here in the presence of Prince Christian Ernest of Stolberg-Wernigerode (1864–1940) with an explanation of the origin of the 1814 iron cross.

From the summit of the Ilsestein the view extends to the nearby Brocken, which rises to the southwest, into the Ilse valley with its surrounding mountains and to the north to Ilsenburg and the Harz Foreland.