The mill lies there like a heap of misery, fell on Saturday night from the second of the three major storm lows.

"A lot has broken and splintered," says Franziska Hildebrandt, mayor of the village of Klettbach near Weimar, which was able to adorn itself with the title "Location of the highest post windmill in Germany" until the weekend.

The slender mill was enthroned on a mountain 438 meters above sea level until the hurricane blew it down.

Stephen Locke

Correspondent for Saxony and Thuringia based in Dresden.

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The news spread in, well, lightning speed, and Hildebrandt quickly received statements of help: craftsmen who supported, citizens who wanted to help immediately.

"We're very happy about that," she says.

"There are an incredible number of mill fans." But she still has to put people off and leave the pile of wood that used to be a mill untouched.

"Everything has to stay that way until the expert was there." Perhaps the expert will come this Wednesday, because the good news despite all the misfortune is that the mill is insured.

However, anyone who has ever had an insurance claim knows how quickly the assurances of “all-round carefree” turn into lengthy haggling over the settlement of the claim.

It starts with the question of whether it was windy at all.

The weather service attested to storm "Zeynep" at times strength 12.

So it happened that the vertical central beam, to which practically the entire mill is attached to the trestle (foundation), broke in two.

For 280 years, the oak trunk had defied the weather and the workload for almost as long.

Until 1961, the last miller still produced grist and flour for Klettbach and the surrounding area.

And in 1913, as the mill association researched in the milling customer book, the mill even crushed and ground 178 tons of grain - solely with the power of the wind, which blew at production strength for 162 days that year.

"The middle beam, of all things," calls Mayor Hildebrandt into the phone.

“From the outside, it still looked great.” She knows that so well because the mill had previously been restored piece by piece.

"Now we were close to being functional again, including the millstone." A small consolation is that they have an exact blueprint for the mill in Klettbach, which can be dismantled and reassembled practically like a construction kit.

The building has already been through this twice: At the beginning of the 20th century, the mill, which was set up a good 60 kilometers to the north in 1743, was brought to Klettbach by train and horse-drawn carriage.

The semi-finished parts were then simply plugged back into each other.

The same thing happened in 2005 when the mill was moved a few hundred meters.

Hildebrandt hopes

that, especially on large parts such as the side walls, only the tenons have come loose.

"In this way we could reuse about half of the parts."

The rest, however, has to be replaced, and Hildebrandt estimates that a mid-six-figure sum will probably come up.

Above all, wood is needed, and given the current prices, you will be very worried.

But in addition to active offers of help, many people also wanted to help with money, which is why the community set up a donation account.

Thuringia has also promised support.

The goal is for the post mill, the landmark of the region, to turn again soon.

"You can't do it without wind," says Franziska Hildebrandt.

"Too much is just not good."