Drei Annen Hohne

Drei Annen Hohne is the name of a small settlement within the municipal area of Wernigerode in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

The place is located about 9 km (5.6 mi) southwest of the town within the Harz mountains, on the northeastern edge of the Harz National Park. It is accessible from the road from Wernigerode to Schierke, an eastern branch–off leads to Elbingerode. Drei Annen Hohne is also a stop on the narrow gauge Harz Railway line from Wernigerode to Nordhausen, as well as of the Brocken Railway, which branches off south of the station.

The remarkable name Drei Annen ("Three Annes") was first mentioned in 1770, when the lord of the manor, Count Christian Frederick of Stolberg-Wernigerode sanctioned the mining of copper and silver at the place, reserving mine shares for himself and his mother Princess Christiane Anna of Anhalt-Köthen, his newborn daughter Anne, and his neonate niece Anna Emilia, daughter of his brother–in–law Prince Frederick Erdmann of Anhalt-Pless. The mining turned out to be non–profitable, and after several attempts, the adit was closed and instead a tavern was erected. When in 1871 Count Otto of Stolberg-Wernigerode had the road to Schierke rebuilt as a highway (the present–day Hagenstraße), the inn was enlarged as a toll station

When on 20 June 1898 the first section of the Harz Railway from Wernigerode opened, the tracks ran right beside the Drei Annen highway inn, but the new station was established on a plateau about 1 km (600 ft) to the southwest near the comital forestry lodge at the Hohne rocks. It was initially called Signalfichte after a prominent spruce near the road, which however fell victim to a storm in October 1901, whereafter the railway station became known as Drei Annen Hohne, a name which was also adopted in the early 20th century by the small settlement next to the station where the present Kräuterhof hotel stands. From the 1950s the Drei Annen inn was run as a recreation home by the East German mechanical engineering combine at Magdeburg, it is today again a restaurant and a hotel.

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