Bockwa

Bockwa City of Zwickau Coordinates: 50 ° 41 ′ 47 " N , 12 ° 29 ′ 49" E
Residents :	237 (Jun 30, 2006)
Incorporation :	April 1, 1939
Area code :	0375
Location of Bockwa in Saxony

Bockwa is a district of the city of Zwickau , which has been the district town of the Zwickau district in the Free State of Saxony since 2008 . The district of Bockwa is located in the district of Zwickau-Süd and has the official number 51. The original municipality area was much larger and was divided between different municipalities in 1939 (see section history).

geography

location

Zwickau Parts of the Town

Today's Zwickau district of Bockwa lies on the right side of the Zwickauer Mulde and south of the Zwickau city center. In the south, the Schmelzbach forms the city limit to Wilkau-Haßlau .

The district of Bockwa is characterized by the Bockwaer Senke, which is lower than the bed of the Zwickauer Mulde due to subsidence phenomena due to the coal mining. This requires extensive dewatering and regulation. The frequent floods were stopped by raising the Muldendamm dam.

Neighboring places

Schedewitz / Geinitzsiedlung		Oberhohndorf
Niederplanitz
Cainsdorf		Niederhasslau

history

Matthew Church in Bockwa

Seal of the community of Bockwa

The time of Bockwas originates roughly at the same time as that of the neighboring village and now the Zwickau district of Schedewitz . Bockwa was a Sorbian settlement, so it must have been settled well before the 10th century . The name Bockwa is Sorbian and means something like Buchenort . In 1219 the place was first mentioned as "Bucwen". The first hard coal was found in Bockwa as early as 1458. Bockwa part as the neighboring upper Hohndorf to reformation to possession of convent Gruenhain . The Bockwaer Matthäuskirche, whose church district included Bockwa as well as Oberhohndorf from 1533, was built in 1511. After the dissolution of the Grünhain monastery in the course of the Reformation, the lordly, electoral Saxon office of Grünhain was formed from its possessions in 1533 . The villages around Zwickau were detached from this in 1536 and added to the Zwickau district as official villages.

Bockwa belonged to the Electoral Saxon or Royal Saxon Office of Zwickau until 1856 . In 1856 the place came to the Zwickau court office and in 1875 to the Zwickau administration . Until the beginning of industrialization in the 19th century, Bockwa was a small village. After that, a decisive change took place: When hard coal extraction in the Zwickau district became more and more important, many shafts were also built in Bockwa . Coal mining was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, Bockwa became one of the richest communities in Saxony, on the other hand, the ground in Bockwa sank by around 9 m over time. The Bockwaer depression was created. Here, too, you can still clearly see the mining damage. The houses on Muldestrasse (B 93) to Schneeberg are sloping. The St. Matthew's Church, built in the neo-Gothic style between 1853 and 1856 with its filigree exterior building made of natural stone, sank by 9.80 m. By chance it did not collapse due to the regular subsidence and was renovated in 1992. In 2002 it received the largest photovoltaic system on church roofs in Germany.

On April 1, 1939, the municipality of Bockwa was dissolved by order of the Reich Governor of Saxony and divided between Zwickau, Planitz , Cainsdorf , Wilkau-Haßlau and Oberhohndorf . The municipality of Oberhohndorf received the lower part of the place called "Altbockwa" with the Matthäuskirche, which is located east of the Zwickauer Mulde. This extends from the land border with Oberhohndorf to the Schmelzbach including the Bockwaer Friedhof to the middle of the Zwickauer Mulde. The part of Bockwa, located south of the Schmelzbach, east of the Zwickauer Mulde, with 1220 inhabitants and 119 hectares came to the city of Wilkau-Haßlau. The corridor west of the Zwickauer Mulde was divided into three parts. The southern part west of the Zwickauer Mulde with 1450 inhabitants and almost 40 hectares was given to the community of Cainsdorf. The city of Planitz received the central part west of the Zwickauer Mulde together with the “Cainsdorf” stop on the Schwarzenberg – Zwickau railway line . The northern part west of the Zwickauer Mulde was incorporated into Zwickau together with Brand . In the course of the dissolution of the municipality of Bockwa, the local volunteer fire brigade was also dissolved. The city of Wilkau-Haßlau took over the 27 comrades and the mechanical leader.

On January 1, 1944, the municipality of Oberhohndorf was incorporated into the urban district of Zwickau, which is now known as “Bockwa” (Alt-Bockwa). As a result of the second district reform in the GDR , Bockwa came to the Chemnitz district in 1952 as part of the independent city of Zwickau (renamed the Karl-Marx-Stadt district in 1953 ). In the 1980s, the material from the demolition of the eastern Zwickau old town was stored in Bockwa.

In the course of the Saxon district reform in 2008 , the city of Zwickau, which has been in the Free State of Saxony since 1990, was incorporated into the Zwickau district, which means that the Bockwa district is now also in the Zwickau district. Today, Bockwa is very rarely inhabited, which has to do with the increased risk of flooding and the demolition or emptying of numerous buildings caused by mining. As a result, the residential development of the district is essentially limited to the old location of Bockwa in the vicinity of the neo-Gothic St. Matthew's Church on Muldestrasse and Bockwaer Weg. Businesses were established along Muldestrasse.

History of coal mining in Bockwa

Former boiler house of the Bockwa freight yard

The coal mining in the corridors of the village of Bockwa, first mentioned in 1458, is the second oldest in the Zwickau coal mining area after the Planitzer . For centuries it was shaped by the coal farmers who mined the coal, which was relatively close to the surface, under their fields in winter. In Bockwa the common land still applied , so that the coal under the common lands belonged to all residents. This found its expression in the 19th century in the old community shafts ( coal mine Altgemeinde Bockwa ; Altgemeinde = common land). There were several hundred shafts on the Bockwaer corridor , most of which were reel shafts of only shallow depth. In the middle of the 19th century, 84 larger shafts were in operation, and the Bockwaer Revier with 1200 miners provided about half of the total production of the Zwickau Revier.

Geographically and geologically, two factors were decisive: the Zwickau Mulde , which separated the municipality of Bockwa into the left and right Mulden parts, and the flat shape of the Muldenaue, under which very thick coal seams lay at depths of 80 to about 240 m . In the 19th century mining associations were founded, which were first run as cooperatives and later as joint stock companies. Due to the location on the Zwickauer Mulde, as a result of centuries of mining activity in Bockwa, subsequent problems such as drainage and the rise in groundwater as well as an increasing risk of flooding due to subsidence had to be managed. As a result, a dewatering consortium was founded in the 19th century and the Schmelzbach creek was relocated. Furthermore, several dewatering shafts were sunk.

In order to improve the sales of the Zwickau coal, was in 1854 on the left bank of the Mulde the state coal train Zwickau-Bockwa, also referred to as a "state coal train Zwickau-Kainsdorf" opened. It went on in 1859 on the Zwickau – Schwarzenberg railway line . For the shafts on the right bank of the Mulde near Bockwa, however, the removal of the coal that had been extracted remained cumbersome. On 22 December 1859, the constituted corporation Bockwaer railway company of the well with the aim of a coal train from the pits right after the station Cainsdorf the state railway to build. The line, which was opened on September 4, 1861, had a total of 60 sidings to the coal pits of the railway area during its operating time.

After most of the shafts closed at the turn of the century due to the exhaustion of coal supplies, in 1903 only the hard coal works Carl G. Falk and Altgemeinde Bockwa remained. In 1909 the Altgemeinde coal works took over the tracks of the Bockwaer Eisenbahngesellschaft, which from then on continued to operate as a connecting railway. In 1913 the Erzgebirgische Steinkohlen-Aktienverein (EStAV) took over the Altgemeinde coal works and most of the smaller works. The dewatering shaft was used until the 1960s to keep water away from the plants to the north (EStAV, now VEB Steinkohlenwerk August Bebel; VEB Steinkohlenwerk Karl Marx and VEB Steinkohlenwerk Martin Hoop ). The history of the Bockwaer Revier ended when it was backfilled in 1966. The Bockwaer coal railway was shut down in 1991 and its tracks dismantled in 2004.

Today numerous mouth holes of former pits can still be seen. In Bockwa and Oberhohndorf there are a total of 14 coal heaps, most of which are covered with allotment gardens. In 1996 the Bockwa Mining Trail was opened, which explains the history of Bockwa mining at 16 stations. He u. a. along the listed former embankments of the coal railway. In 2000, the industrial and sedimentation plant was renovated and recultivated. Today it presents itself as a forest area with woodland plantings.

Population development

date	population
December 31, 1998	273
December 31, 1999	243
December 31, 2000	246
December 31, 2001	247
December 31, 2002	240
December 31, 2003	252
December 31, 2004	249
December 31, 2005	232
June 30, 2006	237

year	Population (forecast)
2010	200
2015	200
2020	200

Source: Urban development concept of the city of Zwickau 2020 (status: December 2006) as well as statistical information of the city of Zwickau 2006/1.

traffic

The B 93 leads through Bockwa as Muldestrasse , which crosses with Wildenfelser Strasse , which leads to the federal autobahn 72 , exit "Zwickau-Ost".

An old iron bridge leads over the Zwickauer Mulde to the Zwickau district of Schedewitz . The tram to Wilkau-Haßlau ran over the Bockwaer Bridge, built in 1888, until September 1958 . The floods of 1954 severely damaged the Bockwaer Bridge. Therefore, the Schedewitzer bridge was built as a replacement in 1958, over which the tram line 3 to Wilkau-Haßlau was then run until it was closed in 1975. A smaller tram depot was built around 1900 in what was then Bockwa, which can still be seen today on the left side of Muldestrasse, out of town.

Due to the coal mining in Bockwa, the place was connected to the rail network via the Bockwaer coal railway between 1861 and 1991. Only goods traffic took place on the route network. The Schwarzenberg – Zwickau railway with the “ Cainsdorf ” stop , which was founded in 1854 as the “Staatskohlenbahn Zwickau – Bockwa”, runs on the bank of the Zwickau Mulde opposite the Bockwa .