Knauthain

The Hope Church from 1846

Knauthain on a map from 1879.

Knauthain has been part of Leipzig since it was incorporated in 1936 . It is located in the floodplain of the Weißen Elster about 10 kilometers south of the city center and, together with Knautnaundorf and Knautkleeberg, belonged to the so-called Knautdörfern .

history

Originally, the settlement was simply referred to as Hayn after Walradus de Hayn . The first written mention of the place under the name "Hagen" (German clearing area) comes from the year 1174. As the successor of the family v. Hayn, the knights Knuth (Knaut, Knauth, Knutonen ) can be traced back to Hain from 1298 to 1349. In 1349 the Bishop of Merseburg drove Knuth out of Hain and the Pflugks took over the rule. Until 1558 "Knutenhain" belonged to the knights Pflugk (see also Mockau , Volkmarsdorf and Windorf ). In 1430 the place was destroyed by the Hussites and was called Knuthayn in 1456 and Knauthayn in 1492. In 1551 there were 34 farmers and 57 "residents" families in Knauthain. After Christian Schönberg acquired the place in 1560, it was sold to Otto von Dieskau in 1591 . During the Thirty Years War , Knauthain was sacked by Croatian troops in 1642 .

The Knauthain Castle - built for the von Dieskau family

From 1700 to 1703 the Knauthain Castle was built for Carl Hildebrand von Dieskau according to plans by David Schatz . It was built in the French-Classicist style on the site of the old moated castle. Later, the park surrounding the castle was created, to which the public, however, had no access. On May 10, 1713, a great fire raged in the village, in which 12 houses were destroyed. Knauthain's most famous resident, Carl Wilhelm Müller , was born here on September 15, 1728. He became mayor of Leipzig in 1778 and went down in the city's history as the creator of the parks on the Promenade Ring. A monument created by Johann Gottfried Schadow in 1819 in the park opposite the main train station still commemorates his achievements.

In 1738 Knauthain, which at that time was populated by around 250 residents in 65 houses, received its first school building. This school was attended from 1771 to 1777 by the later writer Johann Gottfried Seume . In the peasant cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach from 1742 Knauthain and Cospuden are mentioned.

Due to financial difficulties, the Dieskau family had to sell the castle in 1753. The von Hohenthal family became the new owners . Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Hohenthal, who was the royal envoy to the Prussian court, had the palace renovated in 1868 and the park redesigned in the English style .

The old Knauthain church a few years before its demolition

View over the village pond to the Church of Hope with the tower that was shortened after war damage

During the Battle of Nations in 1813 , the Russian-Austrian council of war met in the tenant apartment of Knauthain Castle. On October 19, 1813, the village was sacked and set on fire by Uhlans who fought on Napoleon's side.

Until 1856, Knauthain belonged to the electoral or royal Saxon district office of Leipzig . In 1834 Knauthain had 505 inhabitants. In 1836 a new school was built. In 1845 the old village church had to be demolished because it was in disrepair. The new church ( Hope Church ) built by Leipzig architect Ernst Wilhelm Zocher was inaugurated the following year . With its octagonal nave and the Gothic-looking tower top, the building is an almost identical replica of the village church of Lichtenberg near Pulsnitz. The oldest part of the church was the church bells from the 12th century. The entrance on the north side of the Hope Church is still reminiscent of the previous Romanesque building. The big church bell broke in 1885. The Gothic tower tower fell victim to the Second World War.

The Hope Church, built in 1846

In 1849 the Knauthain Patrimonial Court was dissolved and incorporated into Markranstädt . In 1864 Knauthain had 561 inhabitants. In the same year the construction of the flood bed of the White Elster from Zwenkau to Knauthain began. In 1872 the railway line from Plagwitz (Leipzig) to Zeitz was built via Knauthainer Flur. The station in Knautkleeberg, opened in 1873, was named Knauthain.

The Knauthainer tower windmill was built in 1878. It was in operation until 1992 and delivered meal and mixes to the surrounding villages. Today it is protected as a technical monument.

The renovated manor house of the Knauthain estate

Knauthain Castle, now privately owned.

In 1886 a new bridge was built over the White Elster in the palace gardens. The bridge tariff previously levied has been lifted. In 1895 Knauthain had 1200 inhabitants. In 1914 a water pipe with sewage treatment plants was built and the place was locked. There was also a connection to the power grid. In 1920 the manor and the Lauer were incorporated into Knauthain. From 1933 to 1935, the Elsterstausee was built as part of a job creation program , which was used to purify the water of the Elstermühlgraben .

On April 1, 1936, Knauthain was incorporated into Leipzig. The city bought the castle from Count Leo von Hohenthal and Bergen and had it converted into a primary school.

In 1949 the former Knauthain and Lauer municipal estates were merged to form the state-owned Knauthain estate . From 1959 hops were grown on an area of ​​12 hectares. Another focus of agricultural activity was animal breeding (sheep, cattle, horses).

Part of the Leipzig vocational training center in Knauthain

From 1976 to 1980 the White Elster was relocated and the Elster flood bed was built for flood protection. 1986 began the deforestation of the Lauer and the demolition of the manor located there for the further development of the Cospuden opencast mine .

After the political change in the GDR, the 400 hectare estate was returned to the city of Leipzig in 1992 by the Treuhandanstalt. An amusement park was created in the vicinity of the castle. In the years 1996/97 the reconstruction and renovation of the property in accordance with the listed building standards and the establishment of an agricultural enterprise according to ecological guidelines took place. Gut Knauthain was part of the EXPO 2000 sub-project “Ecological City Goods Leipzig”. In 2003 the estate was privatized. A part was sold to a riding stud, the rest to an organic farmer.

education

The Leipzig vocational training center, founded in 1991, is located in Knauthain and enables around 600 young people with hearing and speech impairments to receive initial vocational training.

The school, which opened on September 24, 1908, is still located today in the historic building on Seumestrasse. In contrast to the church and the castle, the school survived the war unscathed. Only the school operation was subject to restrictions due to the accommodation of resettlers, homeless people and resettlers. From the 1960s to the end of the GDR, the school was run as the 60th Alfred Rosch Polytechnic High School . After the school reform in the course of political change and German unification, the facility started on August 1, 1992 as a primary school with grades one to four. Under the name 60th Schule Leipzig Knautkleeberg-Knauthain , over 200 children study in 10 classes every year. The old school building, which is still waiting for a new facade after minor renovation work, often reaches its capacity limits. The extension, which is currently in the planning phase, was put on resubmission at the city council meeting on March 21, 2012 at the earliest for 2015. A temporary container construction serves as a dining room for the students.

The elementary school also has an after-school care center, which is located in a separate building approx. 600 meters away at Schönbergstrasse 2-4.

traffic

railway station

The Leipzig-Knauthain station belonging to Knautkleeberg is located on the Leipzig-Gera-Saalfeld railway line . Trains of the Erfurter Bahn GmbH stop there every hour . In 2010 the triangle of the tram terminus was replaced by a turning loop and the station forecourt was prepared as a transfer point for buses and trains (“Gateway to the South”).

Personalities

• Carl von Dieskau (1653–1721), Privy Councilor
• Carl Wilhelm Müller (1728–1801), Mayor of Leipzig
• Ernst Adolf Coccius (1825–1890), ophthalmologist and professor
• Klaus Wagner (1922–2001), eventing rider, Olympic participant

additional

• In the summer of 1882, the writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch lived with his family for a few months in a country house in Knauthain.
• The artist and landscape designer Sven Arndt has been running his studio and a small gallery in Knauthainer Seumestrasse since 2007. Knauthain's landscapes and buildings can be found in many of his works.
• In 2015, the owner of the Knauthain horse farm was murdered and the murderer from Austria was searched for with an international arrest warrant.

literature

• Hannes Bachmann, Ursula Herrmann, Marlies Hendel, Gerhard Wolschke: Leipzig-Southwest. From the history of a city district. Council of the City District Leipzig-Southwest, Leipzig 1990.
• Bernd Rüdiger, Harald Kirschner: Knauthain. A historical and urban study. Pro Leipzig, Leipzig 1995.
• Thomas Nabert (Red.): Behind the poplars. Stories from Knauthain, Knautkleeberg, Hartmannsdorf, Rehbach and Knautnaundorf. Pro Leipzig, Leipzig 2002.
• Cornelius Gurlitt : Knauthain. In:  Descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments of the Kingdom of Saxony. 16. Issue: Amtshauptmannschaft Leipzig (Leipzig Land) . CC Meinhold, Dresden 1894, p. 60.
• Helmuth Gröger: Knauthain Castle . In: Burgen und Schlösser in Sachsen , Heimatwerk Sachsen, 1940, p. 85

Individual evidence

1. ^ Karlheinz Blaschke , Uwe Ulrich Jäschke : Kursächsischer Ämteratlas. Leipzig 2009, ISBN 978-3-937386-14-0 ; P. 60 f.
2. ↑ Festival week for the 100th birthday of the 60th school, elementary school of the city of Leipzig, formerly Knautkleeberg school, September 21-27, 2008. In: sachsen-macht-schule.de (PDF).
3. ^ The forgotten 60th elementary school In: Leipzig TV, December 17, 2011.
4. ↑ Knauthain becomes "Gateway to the South"  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Leipziger Volkszeitung via ZVNL , June 1, 2010.  
5. ↑ Wanda von Sacher-Masoch : Meine Lebensbeichte , Berlin and Leipzig (Schuster and Loeffler) 1906. S. 446, in Zeno
6. ↑ Pictures on the gallery website
7. ↑ Horse farm murder in Leipzig ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 

Web links

Commons : Knauthain  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Knauthain in the Digital Historical Directory of Saxony
• Information website My district of the city of Leipzig for Knautkleeberg-Knauthain
• Evangelical Lutheran parish Leipzig-Knauthain
• 60th Leipzig Knautkleeberg-Knauthain School

Coordinates: 51 ° 17 '  N , 12 ° 19'  E