The Dören Gorge is a mountain pass in the Teutoburg Forest between the Detmold district of Pivitsheide V. L., Augustdorf and the Lagen district of Hörste in the Lippe district. Dören (also Döhren) refers to a pass through a mountain range in the Low German-speaking area, especially in East Westphalia-Lippe. The origin of the term can be traced back to the Low German Dör (door).
The Dören Gorge is surrounded in the southeast by the Großer Ehberg (339.6 m), in the northwest by the Kleiner Ehberg (217.4 m) and in the west by the Hörster Berg (315.1 m). In the south is the Senne landscape with the Senne troop training area and the Field Marshal Rommel barracks in Augustdorf.
The gorge was formed by the melting of a glacier in the Drenthe stage of the Saale Ice Age, which stretched through the Porta Westfalica and transverse valleys of the Wiehengebirge from the northeast to the Teutoburg Forest. Its meltwater flowed over the passes to the south-west and carried with it large quantities of sand, which were deposited on the lower-lying plain, the Senne. In addition to the Dören Gorge, this process took place in the nearby Stackelager Gorge, the Oerlinghauser Pass and the Bielefelder Pass. A 26.07 ha part of the gorge is designated as a Dören Gorge nature reserve (LIP-023). This is where, for example, the sources of the Rethlager Bach are located.
In the Dören Gorge there are traces of early human settlement at the Rethlager springs. These are hut floor plans from the Mesolithic Age between around 8000 and 5000 BC. BC, which were discovered and excavated by Heinrich Schwanold at the beginning of the 20th century. There are also a number of burial mounds from the older Bronze Age in the gorge. The pass was also used for traffic early on. The old trade route Frankfurter Weg or Weinstraße led from Frankfurt am Main to Bremen or Lübeck through the Dören Gorge. The two branches of the Westphalian Hellweg on both sides of the Teutoburg Forest were also connected by the gorge. At the narrowest point of the Dören Gorge are the remains of a presumably late medieval landwehr, which was used to control the paths.
Ferdinand Freiligrath located the Varus Battle in the Dören Gorge when he praised the choice of location for the nearby Hermann Monument.
In the Dören Gorge there is a small military cemetery that bears witness to a battle in the last days of the Second World War. A unit of the Waffen SS was entrenched here to stop the advance of American troops. After shooting down seven American Sherman tanks, they were forced to retreat to the nearby quarry, where 35 members of the Waffen SS and an unknown number of Americans lost their lives.
Today, Augustdorfer Straße (Landesstraße 758) runs along the gorge, and the national Roman Route cycle path crosses the Teutoburg Forest here.