I recently visited Harz and subsequently Saxon Switzerland (which is in Germany and Czechia, not Switzerland) and both had issues with these beetles. I was just

I recently visited Harz and subsequently Saxon Switzerland (which is in Germany and Czechia, not Switzerland) and both had issues with these beetles. I was just a tourist, so I'd love to hear a local chime in for any corrections. I was initially shocked that a country could log their own national parks, but eventually came to understand the situation. They log to avoid the beetles spreading, but also because the trees the beetles have infested become risks of starting fires. A fire had occurred on the Czech side of Saxon not too long before I visited. Harz looks specifically bad until you get near the summit (Brocken) because they've explicitly decided to naturally re-forest the park. This reforestation policy isn't new though; it's been applied since miners over-extracted the mountain and destroyed much of the park around the dig-sites, the park brought in new species, and then ultimately decided those new species weren't going to restore their old habitat.