During the 19th century, rapid industrialization and urbanization processes in several European countries required huge quantities of wood for building construction, supporting structures in mines, rail sleepers, electric poles and pulpwood. In response to fast-growing demand for timber, German foresters succeeded in increasing yields per acre while maintaining a sustainable forest management. Despite these efforts, domestic production could no longer meet the demand for timber from the mid-1860s onward. Since there were limited possibilities for extending forest resources by tree planting, Germany finally chose to import massively from neighbouring countries rather than depleting its own forests. The paper examines this question at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when the German Empire became the second largest timber importer in the world. The article advocates an approach combining the history of forestry and the history of timber trade using the concept of “ghost acres”, developed by environmental historians and historians of economics.