The Oak of the Rote Kaserne

Potsdam lists this oak as natural monument number 10. The tree archive that has visited it nine times since 2009 says it is not a natural monument at all. The disagreement may be paperwork rather than anything about the tree. The city's own list carries it, and Wikidata records its designation in November 2005; the archive's entry began as a find in 2009 and may simply never have caught up. We go by the city's list, and we say that is where the protection comes from. It stands in the northern part of the former Rote Kaserne, the Red Barracks, a site since rebuilt as new housing and a school. The archive describes a solitary oak on open lawn with a playground, across from the school, and the paths of the housing estate are the way in. The tape gives two answers. The city's page says 505 centimetres round; the archive measured 550 at chest height in 2023. That fits a tree that grew after the city's measurement, or a tape held at another height, and both figures are kept. The archive also records that the crown has been cut back several times in recent years. Nobody has published a reliable age for it, so this page gives none. If you know how old it is, tell us. The last visit we know of was in 2023.