The area was radically deforested for the first time in the years 1100 to 1300 to meet the fuel and construction wood needs of the up-and-coming city of Nuremberg. In the 14th century there was a threat of desertification and in the 15th century pine monocultures were reforested there. The barren, sandy soil was completely unattractive for agriculture, but the forests were able to re-establish themselves on the Fischbach groundwater bed. It stayed with the forestry use, plus a little beekeeping.[4] During the First World War, the Russenwiese prisoner of war camp was set up 500 m to the west, which later, during the National Socialist period, was operated as a labor education camp. During the night air raids on 10./11. and 27./28. August 1943, which would actually have been intended for the marshalling yard five kilometers to the west, the camp was hit and then abandoned. The fields bordering to the east were also completely devastated by false drops and forest fires. In addition, as the war progressed, there were pieces of debris from downed machines, since the area was exactly halfway between the Fischbach and dozenteich anti-aircraft positions and it initially remained fallow land in the post-war period.
It was not until 1952, when the Nuremberg judicial institutions were handed over to the German authorities again and the core city had been cleared of the heaviest war debris, that the Reichswald also began to be cleaned up. As a branch of the prison, the area was fenced in and partly reforested, postal address Nuremberg Waldpflanzgarten. The Fischbach was dammed to form a wooden pond and the bomb craters on the Hutgraben to the north were expanded to form a chain of ponds. The facilities on Brunner Weg/Holzweiher were not communicated to the public and largely went unnoticed. In October 1967 there was an armed robbery at the site in which a vehicle was stolen
Source: Wikipedia