The village of Ohrdorf lies in the north German state of Lower Saxony

Lower Saxony

Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...

 in the district of Gifhorn and belongs to the borough of Wittingen

Wittingen

Wittingen is a town in the district of Gifhorn, Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approx. 30 km northeast of Gifhorn, and 30 km southeast of Uelzen.- Division of the town :Wittingen consists of 27 districts:- Demographic data :...

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The village takes its name from the river Ohre

Ohre

The Ohře is a 316 km long river in Germany and the Czech Republic , left tributary of the Elbe. The basin area of the river has a size of 6,255 km², of which 5,614 km² are in the Czech Republic and 641 km² in Germany...

, which rises near the village and empties into the Elbe

Elbe

The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...

 north of Magdeburg

Magdeburg

Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....

. In East German times the state border ran down the centre of the Ohre not far from the village. The nearest settlement on the East German side was Haselhorst

Diesdorf

Diesdorf is a municipality in the district Altmarkkreis Salzwedel, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany....

; but it was no longer accessible after the 1950s and the road link was not reopened until 1990.

St. Laurence Church (Laurentius-Kirche), built in 1235, is a fieldstone church

Fieldstone church

The term fieldstone church denotes a type of church, built using fieldstone of glacial erratics and glacial rubble. Such churches occur mostly in areas where the ice ages have deposited such rock material on the one hand, and where on the other hand there is little or no access to natural rock for...

 and has a Gothic

Gothic art

Gothic art was a Medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical...

 polyptych

Polyptych

A polyptych generally refers to a painting which is divided into sections, or panels. The terminology that follows is in relevance to the number of panels integrated into a particular piece of work: "diptych" describes a two-part work of art; "triptych" describes a three-part work; "tetraptych"...

 from the year 1470. According to legend the altar was intended for a church in Wittingen. The wagon on which the altar was carried, broke a wheel in Ohrdorf, an incident that the villagers exploited in order to make the driver drunk and to take the altar for their own church. The pulpit

Pulpit

Pulpit is a speakers' stand in a church. In many Christian churches, there are two speakers' stands at the front of the church. Typically, the one on the left is called the pulpit...

 dates to 1700, the ceiling paintings to 1711.

North of Ohrdorf is a residential windmill

Windmill

A windmill is a machine which converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Originally windmills were developed for milling grain for food production. In the course of history the windmill was adapted to many other industrial uses. An important...

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Sources

• Albert Almstedt: Die Kirche in Ohrdorf. Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag 1984. (Große Baudenkmäler. 357)
• Adolf Meyer: Zur Geschichte der Ohrdorfer Windmühle oder wie Vollhöfner Krüger seine Interessen verfolgte. In: Kalender für den Landkreis Gifhorn, Jg. 1988, S. 121-126.
• Marion Kothe: Innerdörfliche Integration. Zur Bedeutung von Ehe und Vereinsleben auf dem Lande. Göttingen: Schmerse, 1995. (Beiträge zur Volkskunde in Niedersachsen. Bd. 9 : Schriftenreihe der Volkskundlichen Kommission für Niedersachsen. Bd. 10) ISBN 3-926920-17-3 [Research based on interviews of ten couples in Erpensen, Suderwittingen, Ohrdorf and Schneflingen]