A dozen ponds and only about ten kilometers of hiking trail - not a bad deal, right? This is possible in Neunkirchen in Saarland. The 12-Weiher-Weg in the Heinitz district of Neunkirchen has precisely that on the flags or better: the waymarks are written.
Heinitz is considered by some experts to be the place where coal was mined for the first time in Germany. There is evidence that the Celts were already digging for coal near Heinitz in the 6th century BC. They use the coal as a gem for their leaders. Later there was also a "real" pit in Heinitz, and what a mine.
Coal was mined in the Heinitz mine from 1847-1962. The coal mining near Heinitz became the largest coal mine in Saarland. There was electric light on the system for the first time in Saarland in 1878. In 1882 the Heinitz-Dechen mine had a workforce of over four thousand and produced over a million tons of coal a year.
Today there are a number of ponds around Heinitz, which is west of Neunkirchen city center, which point to the town's coal past. We start the 12-Weiher-Weg at the Heinitz home parlor in Grubenstrasse.
From here we walk counter-clockwise and reach the Heinitzer Weiher and with it the Weiherbachtal. We now follow the Weiherbach and pass two nameless ponds.