Geleitstein zwischen Frieda und Großtöpfer, Heritage boundary stone in Geismar, Meinhard, Thuringia, Germany
The Geleitstein between Frieda and Großtöpfer is a cylindrical stone marker with a cubic stone top standing 1.84 meters high. It displays the Hessian lion coat of arms on its western face and sits at the boundary between Hesse and Thuringia.
A first stone was erected around 1540 to mark the Landgraviate of Hesse's border. The current stone was created in 1731 as a replacement and carries this date on its north face.
This marker was part of a system that protected travelers moving between territories. The Hessian lion on the western side shows where one ruler's authority ended and another's began.
The stone stands a few metres from the Hessian-Thuringian border, on the Hessian side, beside today's L3467 road in the Frieda valley between Frieda and Großtöpfer. The road follows the line of the former escort route. The monument is registered as number 39271 in Hesse's monument list.
The stone still serves as boundary marker number 158 on the former line between the Electorate of Hesse (KH) and the Kingdom of Prussia (KP), a line that ran from stone 1 near Wanfried to stone 438 at the Hesselskopf. In 1975 the German-German border commission removed some of these historic stones and replaced them with granite markers inscribed DDR.
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