History and Origins
Vossenack
(municipality of Hürtgenwald) (first attestation: developed between a.1374 – 1393 Gerhard van Woysenacke ; a.1472 Voyssnacken; a.1516 Voyssnacken )
Located on the east-west ridge between Bosselbach and Kalltal, Vossenack grew up around a farm owned by the Lords of Birgel as hereditary marshals of Jülich or their descendants. The founding of the court seems to date back to before 1435, when the Monschauer Land finally came as an office to the Duchy of Jülich.
The elongated terrain provided the motif for the naming ('fox neck'); with the development of the settlement in Waldgeleit, the original field designation has become the settlement name.
Roman-era finds on the ridge north of the Bosselbach along the B 399 indicate an old road connection from the Düren area to Konzen, but the course of the road has not yet been identified more precisely. There is no settlement continuity with other Roman sites in the Vossenacker field. Accordingly, the wooded area was first developed again in the later Middle Ages, probably from the Düren area in the north-east.
According to the land law of 1516, Vossenack belonged to the mill ban of the Kallmühle. Presumably, however, some Vossenackers had their mill milled in the Lukas mill (concession 1567, construction 1569) near the Tiefenbach below Bergstein, but no longer belonging to the Monjoye district. A considerable time later (1706), the Mestrenger Mühle ( on Mestrengen an der Callen ; see there), licensed as an oil mill in 1705, was given the status of an auxiliary mill for the Kallmühle near Lammersdorf, so that the mill trips were less time-consuming.
As part of efforts to provide local ecclesiastical services, the first church (St. Joseph) was built in 1719 as a rectorate under the mother parish of Simmerath. In spite of belonging to Simmerath, the inhabitants of Vossenack used to orientate themselves largely towards the church in Bergstein, which was closer but not "responsible". The other stations of the parish organization are: 1804 parish in the canton of Monschau, 1827 to the deanery of Monschau, 1952 to the deanery of Simmerath, 1973 to the deanery of Kreuzau. In the course of the wave of church building in the second half of the 19th century, Vossenack also received a neo-Gothic building in 1868/69 (tower 1892/93), which was rebuilt in a simplified form in 1952/53 after it was destroyed in the war.
In the Prussian municipal system, Vossenack came with Simonskall to the Schmidt mayor's office in 1816, formed a joint municipality with Schmidt from 1851 and came to the Simmerath district as a municipality in 1936. When the district of Monschau was dissolved in 1972, Vossenack became part of the municipality of Hürtgenwald in the district of Düren. This community name does not correspond to any real place among the associated settlements. The name Hürtgenwald is a parallel formation to English Huertgen Forest and only became widespread in this area through the literature on the autumn battle of 1944.
In the heavy fighting from the end of September 1944 to February 1945 in the Zweifall - Hürtgen - Vossenack - Schmidt area, Vossenack was completely destroyed. Extensive military cemeteries have been laid out on the western outskirts and on the outskirts of Germeter [toward Hürtgen]. In the devastated forest area west of Vossenack, the Raffelsbrand farm settlement was established in 1951.
After planning going back to 1962, the St. Francis High School, supported by a Franciscan convent, was opened in 1967 near the military cemetery.
Simonskall in the Kalltal valley belongs to Vossenack, where Simon Kremer has operated an ironworks since 1612 on the basis of an older concession (1608) (solely owned from 1622), which produced with interruptions until 1816 (since 1741 by the Hoesch family). The townscape is determined by surviving representative buildings from the 17th century.
