Wietze

Coat of arms of Wietze.

Wietze is a small village west of Celle in Lower Saxony in Germany.

The village of Wietze has played a special role in the history of crude oil extraction. As early as the 17th century, crude oil from mineral deposits at Wietze was scooped from tar pits on the surface and used as a grease and medicament. In 1858 one of the first boreholes in the world for the extraction of oil was sunk here. From 1920 to 1963 oil was also extracted from underground mines.

Wietze in 1632

Wietze's valuable oilfields were utilized by the Americans.

In early spring of 1634, Field Marshal Turenne led a cavalry raid on the oilfields south of Luebeck that the Americans hoped would restore gasoline and diesel fuel to their strategic materials. It is during this raid that Turenne's cavalry employed their new percussion-based breech loading Cardinal carbines.