Teutoburg Forest

The Teutoburg Forest (German: Teutoburger Wald) is a mountain chain in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It extends from the town of Osnabrück southeastwards to Paderborn. It is divided by a broad valley, where the city of Bielefeld is located, into the two portions called Northern Teutoburg Forest and Southern Teutoburg Forest.

This low mountain chain was believed to have been the site of a battle between Romans and Germans in 9 AD; the battle was therefore known as the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. For centuries it was not known where exactly the battle took place; recent excavations have finally located it quite a bit north of what is today called the Teutoburg Forest, in Kalkriese north of Osnabrück.

On the Grotenburg near Detmold there is a monument commemorating the battle, commonly called Hermannsdenkmal because at that time the name of the Germanic leader Arminius was (wrongly) transformed to "Hermann". The monument was inaugurated in 1875 by emperor Wilhelm I. In decades of propaganda Arminius was made an early protagonist of German national unity, an obvious reversal of history. Besides, with the actual location of the battle now known, the statue is also very much situated at the wrong location.

The highest elevation in the Southern Teutoburg Forest is the Velmerstot (468 m) (located south of Horn-Bad Meinburg[?]). In the Northern Teutoburg Forest the highest elevation is the Dörenberg (331 m) (north of Bad Iburg[?]).

The source of the Ems river is located in the southernmost portion of the Teutoburg Forest.