Stock Photo - 16 September 2023, Saxony-Anhalt, Halberstadt: A historical reenactor puts on a gas mask at Medingschanze. Visitors learn about historical tours of World War 1 trenches. The Medingschanze, probably the only preserved WW1-era show trench on German soil, can be visited during organized guided tours in the Spiegelsberge Mountains. The city of Halberstadt was a garrison town since 1623 and developed over the centuries into one of the most important in central Germany. This long period of military presence, which ended only in 1993 with the withdrawal of the Soviet army, has left numerous regional traces. Among them is the Meding Redoubt as a relic of the 1st World War, which, however, has largely been forgotten. This war memorial is located off the beaten path in the Spiegelsberge mountains. During World War 1, in 1914, Captain Werner von Meding came to Halberstadt from the Western Front as commander of the Reserve Infantry Regiment 226. In 1916 he had his soldiers build a redoubt. With the construction of this fortification, which was modeled after the originals in Flanders, commander Meding pursued several strategies. On the one hand, he wanted to teach his soldiers the entrenchment technique, and on the other hand, he wanted to use the entrance fees to organize financial support for war veterans and war widows, because the installations were intended to serve the local population as an illustration of the war of position on the Western Front in the First World War. Photo: Matthias Bein/dpa. - Halberstadt/Saxony-Anhalt/Germany