The Oaks of Doelitz Torhaus

Two big oaks stand 36 metres apart by the Torhaus in Doelitz, and the one Leipzig protects is not the bigger of the two. The protected oak is natural monument number 114, the Stieleiche Helenenstrasse, designated under council resolution 1142/98. The city's tree cadastre gives it 5.50 metres round and 23 metres tall. Its neighbour, in the public green beside the Torhaus and the Doelitz war memorial, measures 5.70 metres round and 25 metres tall, with a crown 19 metres across against the other's 14. That neighbour is the trunk worth the walk. Their history is tangled. The cadastre gives both the same planting year, 1816, a figure it assigns to a whole class of old trees, so it is a record for neither. A register of the war memorial mentions a peace oak planted in 1872 and two later oaks, but nobody has settled which trunk is which, and an oak 5.70 metres round is hard to square with an 1872 planting. So we give no age. If you know the story of these trees, tell us. The Torhaus at Helenenstrasse 24 is now a museum. The bigger oak stands in open city green beside it. Whether the protected oak can be reached from that green is not recorded, so view it from Helenenstrasse. The pin marks the protected tree; the bigger one is about 36 metres away. The city still lists both as standing.