Schönthal Manor

Built in 1593 as a copper mill, burned down in the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War, the property has since been popularly known as "de jebrannde Möll" (the burned mill). In 1660, the copper master Leonhard Schleicher acquired the ruin and rebuilt it with the permission of the Count Palatine "by Rhine". Until the construction of the road from Langerwehe to Stolberg in 1827, the copper and brass ingots cast in Stolberg were transported through the riverbed of the Wehebach and processed into sheets in the "burned mill". Over 300 years of settlement in the Wehebach valley, the Schleicher family bought 17 more mills and, from 1819, after Matthias Schleicher had started needle manufacturing, employed temporarily over 400 workers. The highly developed products were sold to many countries around the world, which came to an abrupt end after the First World War. From 1923, the factory halls were converted into apartments and stables, used for agriculture and called "Gut Schönthal". Carl Viktor Schleicher built the first 12 workers' houses in Germany in the 19th century on the property he named "Schönthal", 6 of which are still inhabited today. With the production of firing pins for the newly developed breech-loading rifle used in the Prussian army, the inventions of machines and the sale of patents, the Schleicher family achieved worldwide fame. At the end of the Second World War, Gut Schönthal was severely damaged and only provisionally rebuilt by the population returning home from evacuation. In 1996, Heinz and Frank Kaussen acquired the completely dilapidated property, where only 10 of the original 110 inhabitants still lived. Heinz Kaussen and son Frank rebuilt the complex out of love for the valuable, idyllically located cultural heritage and monument "Gut Schönthal" to preserve it for posterity.