The Oak of Bierbaum (die dicke Oachn)

Locals call it "die dicke Oachn", the fat oak, and it has survived at least one bad repair. Lightning struck it sometime in the 1970s and whoever patched the wound packed the hollow with concrete, the kind of well-meant fix that traps moisture and speeds up rot rather than stopping it. In 1989 the tree surgeon Manfred Saller redid the job properly, funded by a donation from the Austrian businesswoman Heidi Horten, and local reporting says the tree has been visibly healthier since. Its age depends on which measurement you trust. The German dendrological register baumkunde.de puts it at 500 to 600 years, a figure read from its girth and growth pattern. Local tradition insists on something closer to a thousand, with a planting date given as around 1020, though no source names the method behind that number. Both figures are repeated here rather than settled. What is measured rather than argued about is the trunk, 8.75 metres round as of a 2018 survey, under 30 metres of crown. The oak stands on a private plot at the edge of Bierbaum, but the owners have built a public attraction around it anyway: a marked trail, an interpretive sign, and guided tours that bring thousands of visitors a year to stand under a tree that two very different stories both agree is old.