The best family-friendly hikes and walks in Torfvenn, Rehrbach

Who among you knows what kind of vehicle or trailer that was?

Exciting historical place... reminds me of post-apocalyptic movies or series.

"... Two and a half decades later, the plaques bearing the names of the fallen and missing had become rotten and partially illegible. Fortunately, a member of the association had photographed the plaques in May 1990. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the day on which the side extensions to the memorial were completed in 1953, the local history society took the initiative to achieve their restoration. First, the question of ownership had to be clarified. While the municipal building committee approved 2,000 marks for a similar restoration of the plaques of the Gahlen memorial on September 1, 1976, this time the ailing municipal coffers could not be coaxed out of a single euro for the municipal memorial. In this situation, the local history society intervened. Thanks to chairman Gustav Ruloff's good contacts with the former Agricultural Purchasing and Sales Cooperative, Ruloff succeeded in persuading the members to support a funding project. At their last meeting on October 7, 2004, the Meeting participants decided to donate the remaining capital of the dissolved cooperative to the local history society. The local history society received €4,254.21. Raesfeld sculptor Guido Löchteken was commissioned to create a bronze plaque with the names of the fallen soldiers of the First World War. In order to create a stable support for the bronze plaque, the stone plaque had to be removed. When the local history society arrived in September 2005 with grinders and chisels and removed the plaques, the memorial plaque, apparently dating from 1922, was resurfaced. In October 2005, the plaque from 1922 was covered by the new granite plaque, which bears a bronze plaque. Twice a year – at the Schützenfest (Marksmen's Festival) and on Remembrance Day – the people of Gahlen gather to commemorate the victims of two world wars. After the Second World War, a second memorial was erected for the foreign soldiers who fell in Gahlen, located in the village cemetery. (Helmut Scheffler, Gahlen Local History Society, 2014 (abridged). Created in cooperation with the Biological Station in the District of Wesel e.V. as part of the "Cultural Landscape on the Lower Rhine" project. A project within the framework of the LVR Environmental Network) https://www.kuladig.de/Objektansicht/O-107506-20141111-3

The memorial to the Gahlen residents who fell in the First World War stands in the corner between Bruchstrasse and Kirchstrasse and was dedicated on September 10, 1922. It consists of a trapezoidal stone column and a plaque with the names of those who died between 1914 and 1916. A total of 52 names can be read under the inscription "They died for the Fatherland." At the suggestion of the Gahlen Local History Society, the municipal council decided in 1953 to expand the memorial. "The community made considerable sacrifices and financed the work itself," wrote the local press on November 21, 1953. The following day, Remembrance Sunday, the memorial, expanded by six marble slabs (three on each side), was unveiled after the service. The then mayor, Nuyken-Hedgen, introduced the simple ceremony. He pointed out that the village community was obligated to remember its dead. The community of Gahlen had made numerous sacrifices in the last war. 183 names were inscribed on the stone plaques. These included 98 fallen soldiers, 61 missing soldiers, 19 fallen civilians, and missing civilians. Two decades later, the memorial showed such severe weathering damage that, in the year following the municipal reorganization, the Schermbeck CDU applied for its restoration in the now-incorporated district of Gahlen. In the fall of 1976, the plaques' inscriptions were renewed. ... "

I have to agree with @Franky_D. It's about this short connecting path. It's only for hikers. In summer it's very overgrown and there are a few trees lying across it, one of them quite tall. See photos, where picture 1 shows the well-developed main path.

Beautiful, right through the forest. Sometimes muddy with lots of puddles after rain.

Since 1991, a 266.28 hectare area in Hünxe and Schermbeck has been designated as a nature reserve under the identification number WES-048. The area was placed under protection in order to preserve and restore a typically developed lowland area characterized by grassland as a relic of a rural cultural landscape with its characteristic animal and plant species.

Gahlen is a cozy small town