A Dreiherrenstein or Dreiherrnstein is the topographic name of a historical tripoint, especially in the German-speaking lands of central Europe, i.e. a place where the border of three princely territories met, together with any enclosures or border fortifications. The word means literally "Three Lords' Stone".
Examples
Examples of places where Dreiherrensteine are located include:
Boundary stone between the municipalities of Friesenhagen, Wenden and the town of Freudenberg. Es handelt sich um die former border of the Barony of Wildenburg with the kurkölnischen Duchy of Westphalia and the Principality of Nassau-Siegen.
Boundary stone in Medenbach, Wiesbaden, in the parish of "Wellinger" that once marked the borders of Nassau-Idstein, Electoral Mainz and the Hesse-Darmstadt. It bears the date 1730.
Boundary stone between the bishoprics of Münster, Osnabrück and Orange
Boundary stone south of Benneckenstein on the Trans-Harz Railway near the former railway station of Kälberbruch. It was on the border between the Kingdom of Hanover, Kingdom of Prussia and Duchy of Brunswick of 1841
Boundary stone east of Nordhalben in the Frankenwald; border between Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg, Barony of Gera (later the Principality of Reuß j. L.) and Barony of Lichtenberg (later the Margraviate of Kulmbach-Bayreuth, then Kingdom of Prussia, finally Kingdom of Bavaria)
Dreiherrnstein on the Riemen on an eminence (673,9 m) near the mountain of Riemen in the Rothaar Mountains
Dreifürstenstein on the 854-metre-high Dreifürstenstein near Mössingen (county of Tübingen) from the 17th century
Dreiherrensteine from the Hainich in western Thuringia
Dreiherrenstein, Neustall in the Hessian Vogelsberg on the boundary of the parishes of Hintersteinau, Neustall and Holzmühl
Boundary stone number 467.3 at the junction of the parishes of Bad Kreuznach, Altenbamberg and Frei-Laubersheim which, from 1815 to 1945, marked the tripoint of Prussia, Bavaria and Hesse-Darmstadt. The rock was so badly damaged on 12 November 1933 (the day of the first Reichstag election involving the Nazi party) as part of a large-scale campaign of destruction by the Hitler Youth against the great number of German states, which in the border area between Rhenish Hesse and the Palatinate alone saw the destruction of 77 boundary stones, that the marking on it were no longer visible; instead only the initials of the Hitler Youth ("HJ") remain today.[1]