NORDPFAD Kempowskis Idylle

Since February 2021, we have been starting our circular walk  at the Nartum cemetery, where the grave of Walter Kempowski, who gave his name to this hiking trail, is also located. There are plenty of parking spaces available there and an information board provides information about the route.

Before we set off, we visit theNartumer Großsteingrab, which is located to the left of the cemetery. It consists of a well-preserved burial chamber five meters long. We then walk past the chapel and the cemetery to the first crossroads, where there is a herb bed of the "Nartumer Kräuter-Runde". Many of the ten lovingly planted, fragrant beds are located directly on our NORDPFAD. We continue straight ahead through the fields in the direction of the Röhrbergeiche.

On arrival at the  natural monument, the shady resting place on the 43-metre-high Röhrberg offers a wonderful view of the surrounding fields and meadows of Nartum. A little later, we enter the cool forest area of Steinfelder Holz. Through the dense mixed forest, past the parking lot of starting point 2, we reach the Steinfelder Großsteingrab. Unlike other megalithic tombs, the burial chamber built from huge boulders extends in a north-south direction. The rest area here invites you to take a break.

After another 600 m, we leave the dense forest. We walk along the edge of the forest on near-natural paths. Along the way, a collection of boulders invites you to stack cairns. A wide gravel path leads us to the Hemelsmoor nature reserve past a birch-pine forest. Our next destination is theSandkuhle Steinfelder Holz, from the crest of which there is an impressive view into the depths of the former sand extraction site. The hill offers a good place for a break before continuing along the edge of theStellingsmoor. The highlight of this section is the "Utkiek" viewpoint, which offers a wide view of the rewetted moorland.

Along small drainage ditches with many views of the moorland and through boggy grassland, we finally approach the fields and meadows of Nartum. In Nartum, a detour into the street "Zum Röhrberg" leads to theHaus Kreienhoop, home and workplace of the deceased writer and seat of today's Kempowski Foundation. From the crossroads, it is only 600 m to the Nartumer Motormühle. Together with the bakehouse and the square under the oak trees, this forms the center of the village of Nartum. From there, it is not far to the starting point. 

Disturbance reports
Before your hike, you should checkwww.nordpfade.de for information about possible detour and path disturbances that may occur, for example due to flooding, storm damage or forestry work.

Markierungszeichen
Das Markierungszeichen zeigt ein weißes „N“ auf orangem Grund mit dem Namen des NORDPFADES Kempowskis Idylle.

Beschilderung
Zielwegweiser ergänzen die Markierung und sind an markanten Stellen platziert. Auf den Wegweisern sind Orte aufgeführt, die sich auf der Strecke befinden oder von dort abzweigen, samt den Entfernungskilometern. Unterhalb befindet sich das Logo des jeweiligen NORDPFADES.

It is around 10-15 minutes from the A1 highway to the starting points, each of which has an information board and parking facilities.

• Starting point 1: 27404 Nartum, Nartum cemetery, Raiffeisenstraße, approx. 200 m from the NORDPFAD 
• Starting point 2: 27412 Steinfeld, Steinfelder Holz, Am Walde
  

Two parking facilities are available at the NORDPFAD. The respective starting points can also be found there.

• Parking lot 1: 27404 Nartum, Friedhof Nartum, Raiffeisenstraße, approx. 200 m from the NORDPFAD 
  
• Parking lot 2: 27412 Steinfeld, Steinfelder Holz, Am Walde
  

Anreise mit der Bahn
Bushaltestelle: Nartum - Am Brink, etwa 600 m vom Startpunkt 1 des NORDPFADES entfernt, nahe der Motormühle Nartum
Buslinie 864: verkehrt Mo.-Fr. zwischen Zeven Busbahnhof und Nartum
Infos: www.vbn.de

Komoot
In der bekannten Outdoor-App haben wir alle 24 Rundwanderwege in einer eigenen NORDPFADE-Collection zusammengestellt. Die Touren sind auch im Portal unter der Region "Nördliche Heide" zu finden.

Noch nicht auf Komoot?
Für Neukunden gibt es einen kostenfreien Gutschein-Code. Der Code lautet ROW und kann über "Gutschein einlösen" auf komoot.de/g oder unter dem Link https://komoot.com/de-de/g?code=ROW eingelöst werden.

Der Startplatz 1 wurde vom ehemaligen Melkhus beim Hof Intemann, Mulmshorner Str. 10 in 27404 Nartum zum Friedhof Nartum in der Raiffeisenstraße verlegt. Grund für die Verlegung ist, das stark gestiegene Wanderinteresse und die damit verstärkte Nutzung des Parkplatzes, welcher sich in Privatbesitz befindet.“

Die folgenden Prospekte sind kostenfrei in den örtlichen Touristinfos und unter Prospektbestellung erhältlich. Dort stehen sie auch als Download zur Verfügung. 

• NORDPFADE-Tourenbegleiter
  Die kleine Broschüre enthält alles Wissenswerte zur Wanderregion.


• NORDPFADE-Übersichtskarte
  Das handliche Faltblatt ist die kleine Planungsgrundlage für Umweltbewusste.
  
  
• NORDPFADE-Wanderpass
  Die stempelfreie Variante für Sammler.

Zudem gibt es ein Taschenbuch das der Editon Temmenverlag herausgebracht hat. Ein amüsant geschriebener "WanderVERführer" von Lucia Gefken, die ihrem Alltag entflieht und zu wandern beginnt.

• Meine NORDPFADE 
  Oder: "Es muss ja nicht immer der Jakobsweg sein!"

Who was Walter Kempowski, the namesake of this NORDPFADE?
Source: www.ndr.de/geschichte/koepfe/Walter-Kempowski-Ein-literarischer-Chronist,walterkempowski101.html

A literary chronicler
Walter Kempowski has been one of the most widely read contemporary German authors for decades and is considered one of the great literary chroniclers of German history in the 20th century. The writer and honorary citizen of the city of Rostock, who died in 2007, became known above all for his work "Echolot" in ten volumes, which condenses diary entries, letters and other documents from the time of the Second World War into a collage.

From village school teacher to author
Kempowski was born in Rostock on April 29, 1929, the son of a shipowner. Three years after the end of the war, he was arrested for alleged industrial espionage and spent eight years in the GDR prison in Bautzen. He moved to the West in the mid-1950s, studied education in Göttingen and worked for 20 years as a village school teacher in Lower Saxony in the district of Rotenburg (Wümme) in Nartum and Breddorf before devoting himself entirely to writing.
His well-known works include "Tadellöser & Wolff", "Uns geht's ja noch gold. Roman einer Familie" and "Deutsche Chronik". He also received great acclaim from abroad for his mammoth work "Echolot". His latest book, "Alles umsonst", was published in 2006 and deals with the dramatic escape of Germans from Red Army-occupied East Prussia in the winter of 1945.

Diaries as the most important sources
In his works, the author repeatedly dealt with the subject of totalitarian violence and ideology. In doing so, he incorporated numerous elements of his own biography, from his time in the Third Reich, the turmoil of war and his escape to his conviction and imprisonment for espionage by the Soviet occupiers in post-war Germany.

The most important source for Kempowski's work were his diaries: his own, which he had kept since 1945, but also the notes of other people, which he had been collecting since the 1980s. Many of his reviewers regarded Kempowski as a representative of an entire generation of the German post-war middle classes.

Numerous awards
Kempowski had to wait a long time for widespread recognition - the commercial success of his nine chronicle novels did not necessarily bring the avowed anti-communist a corresponding literary appreciation. This only changed fundamentally with the publication of Echolot-Kriegschronologie in the 1990s. Numerous honors followed.
For example, Kempowski received the Hans Erich Nossack Prize for his life's work in Rostock in October 2005. Other awards include the Literature Prize of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (1994), the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1996) and the Order of Merit of the State of Lower Saxony (2004). In 2005 he received the Thomas Mann Prize.

The Akademie der Künste in Berlin, which took over the writer's archive in 2005, exhibited his personal collection this year under the title "Kempowski's CVs". Due to his illness, the writer was unable to see the show himself. However, according to his wife Hildgard Kempowski, who died in 2019, this exhibition was the "highlight of his life". "The importance you have attached to my work has surprised me, and the love and care that has gone into the realization of this exhibition makes up for a lot," explained Kempowski in a message of greeting read out by his son Karl Friedrich at the opening. Kempowski was made an honorary citizen of his native city of Rostock in 1994