Heiligenberg 3.13

The Heiligenberg is a wooded hill overlooking the town of Heidelberg in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It rises to around 440 meters NHN and has been the site of several historical buildings: a Celtic hilltop fortification, a Roman sacred precinct, several medieval monasteries, modern lookout towers and a so-called Thingstätte, built by the Nazis in the 1930s.EtymologyThe hill was called the Aberinsberg in the Carolingian period; in 1265 Premonstratensians from All Saints' Abbey in the Black Forest took over the two monasteries on the mountain, and its name became Allerheiligen-Berg (all saints' mountain), the ancestor of its present name.Geography and geologyThe Heiligenberg is a low sandstone mountain, with a highest elevation of 439.9m, on the western edge of the Odenwald where it meets the Bergstraße Route and the Upper Rhine Plain. It lies north of the Michaelsberg (375.5m), and on the other side of the Neckar the Königstuhl rises above the old town of Heidelberg. The west and south sides of the Heiligenberg, facing the plain and the Neckar valley, are steep. On the north side the Kerb valley, through which flows a stream called the Rombach or Mühlbach, lies between the Heiligenberg and the Hoher Nistler; to the north-east a ridge connects the Heiligenberg to the Weißer Stein.