Summary With the present paper the author wants to show general aspects concerning mire development in a lake shore area. Macrofossil and pollen analyses were carried out in the Dreckmoor, and in addition some chemical and 14 C-assays were available. The main results were: According to all the profiles investigated the present vegetational zonation of the lake border mire does not correspond to the course of (secular) successions of the past. The successional development of the mire proved rather different, too, in the single parts of the investigated area, with respect to both the peat forming plant communities and the beginning and temporal course of the successions. The conclusion of these findings can only be as follows: The course of the successions seems to have been extremly influenced by external conditions, especially by hydrological and meteorological changes and by effects of human activities. Because these influences were acting as single, “accidental” events, it seems impossible, in contrast to an often cited view, to consider the successions of the so-called hydrosere as a purely “autogenous” development, which is mainly self-regulating by the activities of its peat forming vegetation itself. Results of more general relevance also concern: The velocity of vertical growth and of horizontal extension of the mire; The duration of successional stages with constant species composition and the extent and velocity of floristical changes between different stages; The trophic trends of plant communities as derived from their successional sequence; The observation that, in a part of the investigated area, the mire succession started with a mesoor oligo-mesotrophic plant community immediately upon eutrophic sediments, and the possible causes for this phenomenon; Differences in some chemical properties in peats of nearly the same botanical origin and their possible causes. Some further results concerning vegetation history, certain events of human history and the development of the lake are of more local interest.