Klenkes, Aachen

The Klenkes is a sign of identification for Aacheners and a greeting to one another. It is the raised little finger of the right hand. Since 1970, a memorial by the Aachen sculptor Hubert Löneke at the Holzgraben commemorates the Klenkes.

Aachen was known for its cloth industry and therefore also for its needle factories. The workers, mostly children, used their right little finger to sort out the needles. This activity, the "notching" of the faulty needles on the tape, led to malpositions and growth defects in the little finger.

As a result, people from Aachen could often recognize each other from a distance by their deformed little finger, even without saying a word. In the course of time, the cloth industry increasingly lost its dominant role in the Aachen area. But the landmark of the Klenkes remained, so the radio tower built in 1984 in the Aachen forest was given the official name Mulleklenkes, which means something like speaking Klenkes in High German.