Historical documents

Documents available to view online or download

Abstracts from an incomplete –but invaluable–local history of Burg Reuland developed by W. Wittrock and K. D. Klauser (texts are in German, but are readily translated with Google Translate)

  1. Earliest settlements (original German title: "Erste Anzeichen menschlicher Besiedlung - keltische Spuren in der Gemeinde")
  2. From the 15th to the 18th Centuries (original German title: Vom Burgort zur Herrschaft: 15.–18. Jahrhundert)
  3. Place and Street names (original German title: Reuländer Flur- und Straßenamen – der identifizierbare Raum)

Historic drawing of the village of Reuland in 1592 (source: Staatsarchiv Eupen, provided courtesy of Mr. K. D. Klauser, Director of Zwischen Venn und Schneifel (ZVS), a local history museum and archive in St. Vith, Belgium.

 History of Burg Reuland castle (source unknown)

 Local tourist brochure (text in German, Dutch, and French)

Above: Willi Wittrock (leftmost in this photo), a retired schoolteacher who had been working on a history of Burg Reuland, explains the features of an old Burg Reuland home to Sharon Klaers Birnbaum and her daughter Sarah Birnbaum, during their 2014 visit to Burg Reuland. The home, known to this day as the Arens home, is where Sharon's great-great-grandfather was born in 1826. We were connected to Willi by the efforts of the owner of the only cafe in town, who  learned about Sharon's ancestral link to Burg Reuland. In his right hand, Willi is holding an early version of Sharon's Burg Reuland family history, which we left with him as a gift.