Auerbach (Ore Mountains)

Basic data
State :	Saxony
County :	Erzgebirgskreis
Management Community :	Burkhardtsdorf
Height :	534 m above sea level NHN
Area :	8.28 km 2
Residents:	2455 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	296 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	09392
Area code :	03721
License plate :	ERZ, ANA, ASZ, AU, MAB, MEK, STL, SZB, ZP
Community key :	14 5 21 040
Address of the ; municipal administration:	Hauptstrasse 83 ; 09392 Auerbach
Website :	www.auerbach-erzgebirge.de
Mayor :	Horst Kretzschmann ( independent )
Location of the municipality of Auerbach in the Erzgebirge district

Auerbach is a municipality in the Erzgebirgskreis in Saxony (Germany). It has been part of the Burkhardtsdorf administrative community since March 21, 2008 .

geography

The community is located in the Ore Mountains , approx. 20 km south of Chemnitz . It borders in the northwest on the community of Gornsdorf (lower district at 471.6 m above sea level) and in the southeast on the area of the city of Thum (upper district at 642.6 m above sea level).

Auerbach was one of the centers of the hosiery industry in the 20th century, the beginnings of which go back to the early 19th century.

history

Entrance of Auerbach from the direction of Jahnsbach

The first mention in 1446 can already be found in a document as Vwerbach . In 1447, Auerbach is referred to as the official village of Stollberg under the name of Vrbach in the Electoral Saxon Chancellery Register . Although the document from 1446 has been known for a long time and z. B. was also taken as a basis by Blaschke , the year 1447 is traditionally the key year for the local anniversary celebrations.

Auerbach was created during the eastern colonization in the 12th and 13th centuries. The place is in the area of the former forest that covered the entire Ore Mountains. The shape of the Waldhufendorf , which is still recognizable today, shows that at that time there was a fixed scheme of the floor division .

The shire to the left and right of the Dorfbach was excluded from the hoof division . The so-called Dorf anger served as communal pasture for small livestock.

Only gradually was the village green leased or sold by the community to cottagers . Cattle paths and livestock trails on which the livestock from community shepherds in the community-owned Waldhuten or wooded pastures were driven were later sold or leased, often they also served as public roads of the 19th century.

As early as 1500, Auerbach was not a pure farming village . For the year 1552 29 owners of farms and an unusually high number of 54 inhabitants are given. The 54 does not represent the number of inhabitants, but the number of self-employed people without real estate. These can be miners , charcoal burners , forest workers , Harzers or sawmillers , for example . A total population of several hundred people is then conceivable. For the year 1605 a population of 300 is given.

In terms of church, Auerbach was a branch church of Hormersdorf for centuries. The village is said to have had its own house of worship as early as 1500. This was looted by Swedish troops in 1643. The renewed church was consecrated on June 4, 1747.

Like many other Erzgebirge places, Auerbach was not spared epidemics and diseases. In 1582, 1598 and 1625 the plague raged in the village. The leaves broke out in 1711 and dysentery a year later. After the great famine in 1772, Auerbach was hit by the outbreak of scarlet fever in 1700 and a year later by a measles epidemic. The last great famine occurred in 1862.

After the "Gotthilf Kurth Company" was founded in 1843, Auerbach was connected to the power grid on December 27, 1910. The following year, the Schönfeld-Wiesa-Meinersdorf narrow-gauge railway was completed. The connection to the gas network took place on September 9, 1925, and the first central water pipeline was put into operation in the same year.

At the beginning of the Nazi era in 1933, the youth home on Hauptstrasse (Karl-Marx-Strasse in GDR times) was used as a place of imprisonment and torture by the SA against political opponents and other unwelcome people.

Until its dissolution, the community was the seat of the Auerbach administrative community .

History of the local stocking industry

Former ESDA stocking combine in Auerbach (Erzgeb)

In Auerbach, the manufacture of hosiery on wooden hand-held chairs began around 1759 . Production took place in the houses and rooms of the stocking weavers until the second half of the 19th century . In 1799, Christian Gottlieb Kurth, born on April 30, 1779, introduced the hosiery industry . In 1834 he founded the first stocking company in Auerbach. By 1900, seven stocking companies with factory buildings had been established, often keeping house production.

The seven establishments:

Company Gotthilf Kurth founded in 1834
C. Louis Keller company, founded in 1867
FW Wieland company, founded in 1876
F. Theodor Häcker company, founded in 1881
FA Uhlmann, founded in 1882
Company Louis Sehm / R. Uhlig, founded in 1887
Company A. Robert Wieland founded, 1892

During the GDR era, there was an ESDA combine in Auerbach .

religion

Parish church of Auerbach

37.5% of the population are Lutherans, 0.5% Catholics.

The Evangelical Lutheran parish of Auerbach with the listed village church belongs to the Annaberg church district of the Evangelical Lutheran regional church of Saxony . There is also the regional church community Auerbach, which belongs to the regional association of regional church communities in Saxony .

The Catholics belong to the parish of St. Peter and Paul in Zwönitz , which maintains a branch church in Thalheim . The community belongs to the Deanery of Zwickau of the Diocese of Dresden-Meißen .

In addition, there is the Evangelical Free Church of Auerbach with around 30 members, which belongs to the working group of the Brethren in the Federation of Evangelical Free Churches in Germany .

Municipal council

City council election 2019

Turnout: 66.4%

%

60

50

40

30th

20th

10

0

57.0%

27.8%

15.2%

BVA

IfA

CDU

A total of 14 seats

IfA : 4
BVA : 8
CDU : 2nd

Since the municipal council election on May 26, 2019 , the 14 seats of the municipal council have been distributed among the individual groups as follows:

Citizens' Association Auerbach (BVA): 10 seats
Initiative for Auerbach (IfA): 4 seats
CDU : 2 seats

mayor

In March 2011 Horst Kretzschmann was elected mayor.

traffic

Auerbach station (Erzgeb), reception building (2016)

Auerbach is connected by local roads with the federal highway 95 in the east and the federal highway 180 in the neighboring town of Gornsdorf to the northwest. Between 1911 and 1974/76 the place had a train station and a stop on the narrow-gauge railway Schönfeld-Wiesa-Meinersdorf .

Memorials

Memorial plaque at the youth home in Hauptstrasse for 50 abused people from the labor movement
List of cultural monuments in Auerbach (Ore Mountains)

Local customs

In the past there was a second set in addition to the single-glass windows, which were added in the cold season, the double windows. The space in between was partially filled with moss to prevent drafts. During the Christmas season it was decorated with small figures and candles. See also Bethenmoos .

Hellmuth Vogel, a young teacher (born in Limburg) who came to Auerbach in 1911, discovered such a window sill with moss and "Männeln" (Erzgebirge for "little man") and also learned that there were many more of them in the past. Teacher Vogel began to tinker with his students "Fensterbrattln" (Erzgebirge for "window sill"), and in the mid- 30s there were supposed to have been around 1000 windows illuminated in this way. Auerbach was made known in the press as the “Fensterbrattln village”.

Electric candle arches later became modern, the double windows became fewer and so did the window panes.

The revival of this rare tradition began in 2002 on the basis of the original designs kept by Hellmuth Vogel's daughter. In addition to many domestic decorations, the “Auerbacher Riesen-Fansterbrattl”, which was first set up in 2003, was created.

Individual evidence

↑ Population of the Free State of Saxony by municipalities on December 31, 2019 ( help on this ).

↑ 1947, 1972, 1997 and 2022. For details, Falk Drechsel: You don't even look at Auerbach ... but it is a year older than previously assumed. In: Bulletin of the municipality of Auerbach, December 18, 2019, also online as PDF (accessed January 19, 2020), p. 15

↑ 2011 census

↑ Evangelical Lutheran Church Congregation

↑ Regional Church Community Auerbach

^ Parish Zwönitz. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; accessed on February 23, 2014 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2