The Burning Spruce

12 October 1762, quarter to six in the evening. An unexpected thunderstorm passed over Saarmund. Lightning struck an old spruce, 200 years old, highest tree of the wood. The tree caught fire. That was normal. But this spruce burned on. Four hours of rain that night; the tree burned. Next day it snowed; the tree burned. Two weeks later came a hard frost; the tree burned. Saarmunders came warily. None dared near; the heat was too great. The Prussian gendarme reported to King Frederick II in Berlin. Frederick had it investigated; the tree was not kept burning with oil or tar, it burned of itself. The Prussian academy could not explain it. For months.

The tree burned through December, January, February 1763. Saarmunders began to read the sign: «While the Burning Spruce burns, the war burns. The tree dies when the war dies.» Prussia was in heavy crisis — treasury empty, army exhausted. Tsarina Elisabeth of Russia had died in January 1762, her successor Peter III befriended Frederick, left the war. France exhausted. Austria wanted peace. Negotiations began October 1762 (just as the Burning Spruce caught fire) at Hubertusburg, Saxony. Four months the three powers bargained. On 15 February 1763 at eleven in the morning the treaty was signed. At the same hour, 800 km north-west at Saarmund, the Burning Spruce died. No smoke, no flame, not even warmth. The tree stood charred, hollow, but upright. The Saarmunders learned of the coincidence only by post two weeks later. Frederick II had a granite stone set up: «Brandfichte. 12 October 1762 – 15 February 1763. While we wage war, the wood burns.» The stump stands at the Brandfichtenplatz, the stone beside. Tradition: «A tree that burns without going out burns for more than itself. A war burns without going out till someone signs the peace. He who sees the tree burn knows: while nothing is signed, something is burning.»