Germany, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Alps, Zugspitze, summer view from the Zugspitz plateau over the Wetterstein mountain range. The Zugspitze, rises eleven kim southwest of Garmisch-Patenkirchen, at 2,962 mtr, with the Summit cross, above sea level it is the highest mountain of Germany & the highest peak of the Wetterstein mountain range of the Northern Limestone Alps at the border to Austria.
On good days you can see around 400 peaks from the Zugspitze 250 km away the Feldberg in the Black Forest, Hochkönig & Watzmann in the Berchtesgaden Alps, Großglockner & Wildspitze in Austria, the Marmolada also the highest mountain in the Dolomites.
No other German summit that is so easily accessible can keep up with this 360-degree panorama. You can often see the magic mountain not only from the six holiday areas of the Upper Bavarian Zugspitz region, with luck & good weather conditions one can see it from Munich.
Since 1851 there has been the first ca. 4,7 mtr tall summit cross on the top of the Zugspitze. The driving force behind the erection of a cross on the summit was the priest, Christoph Ott. After 37 years the cross had to be taken down after suffering numerous lightning strikes & its support brackets were also badly damaged. In the winter of 1881–1882 it was therefore brought down into the valley & repaired, on August 1882 the cross was installed back on the top. Because of a lodge was built on original side on the West Summit, the team positioned the cross on the East Summit. There it remained for about 111 years, until it was removed again in 1993.
This time the damage was not only caused by the weather, but also by American soldiers at the end of the Second World War, they used the cross as target practice after 1945, the summit cross could no longer be repaired & a 4,88 mtr tall true-to-original replica was made.
After two months the rack railway carried the new cross in October to the Zugspitzplatt, from where it was flown to the summit by helicopter, the new cross has a height of 4.88 metres. It was renovated & regilded in 2009 for 15,000 €, since April 2009, the cross stood once again on the East Summit.
Flatlanders like myself do no longer have to train their legs to visit the Zugspitze: the cog railway & cable cars on the German side can bring 6,000 people up to the top every day, including prams, wheelchairs & boxes for the lapdogs. There are also other passengers on a cable car on the Austrian side, plus the hikers who ascend on one of the four usual routes.
For the average tourists, a short, slightly exposed path on the east summit leads to the summit cross. Despite its short length, it requires concentration, the small path & the ladder anchored in the rock wall to the summit is very busy & crowded at certain times. The greasy rock is secured with a handhold steel ropes, to be alone on the summit is at certain times, for example early in the morning before the first cable car arrives at the Munich house.
👉 The ascent to the summit cross is easy for "selfie fans / chasers" & carries too many tourists on the Zugspitze. The shady side of the summit cross mass tourism has as a result that the shaft of the cross is full of stickers brought with them ... the good thing is that there is no way for the so-called love locks to attach them. In downright breakneck exercises, the last remaining free spots are filled in order to get as close as possible to the golden ball, even if it can hardly be read up there. Because there is no longer any space further down for round, square or rectangular emblems, of course, the other stickers are not pasted over, ... so much consideration has to be given.
The stickers cannot be easily removed. If they were removed, the cross, which is covered with delicate gold leafs, would be damaged. The damage could only be repaired with high costs & great logistical effort, there are also no technical solutions to ward off such attacks. Even if a webcam is aimed at the summit cross - the perpetrators will not be deterred.
The time when I shot the picture the cross was cleaned shortly before.
👉 In 2012 a Muslim prayer house was built on the summit, at the same time, a photo of the summit without the summit cross was published in the new advertising brochure.
The selection of images was criticized by the Bavarian churches as a denial of the religious roots of the Bavarian/Austrian culture & country & a misplaced ingratiation to the Muslim visitors.
👉 One World one Dream,
🙏...Danke, Xièxie 谢谢, Thanks, Gracias, Merci, Grazie, Obrigado, Arigatô, Dhanyavad, Chokrane to you & over
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![Bayerische Zugspitzbahn : Bergbahn auf Deutschlands höchsten Gipfel : tourist folder : Bayerische Zugspitzbahn Bergbahn AG. : Germany : nd [c.1955] : cover](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54240228860_b8155093ac_m.jpg)
