Loessnitz (Ore Mountains)

Basic data
State :	Saxony
County :	Erzgebirgskreis
Height :	422 m above sea level NHN
Area :	30.49 km 2
Residents:	8201 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	269 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	08294
Area code :	03771
License plate :	ERZ, ANA, ASZ, AU, MAB, MEK, STL, SZB, ZP
Community key :	14 5 21 370
City structure:	6 districts
; City administration address :	Marktplatz 1 ; 08294 Lößnitz (Ore Mountains)
Website :	www.loessnitz.de
Mayor :	Alexander Troll ( CDU )
Location of the city of Lößnitz in the Erzgebirge district

View of Loessnitz

The mountain town of Lößnitz (from Slavic lesnice for Waldbach ) in the Ore Mountains , also called Muhme because of its age , is a town in the Ore Mountains District , Saxony , Germany and belongs to the Silberberg Association of Cities .

geography

Lößnitz is a small town in the western part of the Ore Mountains and has been part of the Ore Mountains District since the end of the 20th century. It is embedded in wooded ridges in a long valley at a height of approx. 432 m above sea level .

Districts

Affalter (since January 1, 1999)
Dittersdorf (since February 1, 1974)
Grüna (since February 1st 1974 district of Affalter)
Streitwald (part of Affalter since April 1, 1939)
Niederlößnitz (since 1898)
Dreihansen (was considered an independent municipality in 1791)


District	Population (31.12.14)
Loessnitz city	6,812 (of which 2,880 in Niederlößnitz)
Affalter	1,074
Grüna	103
Streitwald	339
Dittersdorf	300
Dreihansen	218

history

Between the founding in 1170 and the end of the Middle Ages

Lößnitz goes back to the foundation of the burgraves of Meißen in 1170. In a document from 1284 it was already referred to as Civitas . The name of the city developed from the Old Sorbian word Lesnica for forest stream. The place appears in documents as early as 1238 as "Lesnitz, the forest village". On Lößnitzer Flur there is Sebottendorf , which fell desolate in 1286 .

The history of Lößnitz is rather speculative in its early days: a schoolmaster mentioned in 1304 led to the assumption that the Lößnitz Latin School has existed at least since the beginning of the 14th century. The first mayor Hermann von Buten, mentioned in 1372, allows the assumption that a town hall must have already existed at this time .

Lößnitz owes its development to the early start of the salt trade; the salt road led through the town from Halle via Zwickau and Hartenstein to Bohemia . The Burgrave of Meißen had granted Lößnitz the salt privilege in 1388 . This meant that by attracting merchants had similar to the settlement rights a part of their wares offer. The money raised could only be used for city expansion. After deducting the salt tithe to the authorities at the beginning of the 16th century, the city had an annual profit of 63 bushels from the sale of the salt, which corresponded to about 80 quintals of salt. (At that time, one kilogram of salt was worth a penny , which roughly corresponded to the weekly wage of a miner.) With the income from the salt trade, the city bought, among other things, a mighty city wall with three towers.

In 1382 Lößnitz became a mining town . But at the end of the 14th century it burned down completely except for the town mill in front of the gates. In 1406, Count von Schönburg acquired the county of Hartenstein and made Lößnitz its capital.

In 1542 the Reformation reached Loessnitz. Witch trials took place here in the 1580s . During this witch hunt in 1583, the Wagner Christoph Brühl and his wife were killed: the man was hanged, the woman burned on charges of damage and weather magic .

17th century to the end of the 20th century

Between 1601 and 1607 the citizens rebuilt their previous town hall, initially a new portal was completed. However, the town hall, the church , the parish and school building and another 108 houses fell victim to the "Red Ruhr" (as this city fire was called) in 1616. In the following years, the city had to struggle with looting , the plague and another city fire.

In addition to the rebuilt medieval St. John's Church , the baroque St. Georg Hospital Church was inaugurated in 1714 .

On December 10, 1806, the town hall, the parish and school buildings, the brewery and malt house as well as 182 houses and 16 barns fell victim to the fire. In the middle of the reconstruction that had just begun, a lightning strike in 1809 set large parts of the city on fire again. Of the 104 houses destroyed in this city fire, 26 were newly renovated. The old parish church of St. Johannis was demolished and rebuilt as a stone building. On October 29, 1826, it was consecrated as the main and city church. Later fires destroyed the hospital church, which was renovated by 1862.

After the municipal jurisdiction had been assigned to the House of Schönburg, the “Princely Schönburg Justice Office Stein” was established in 1861. As a result of the takeover of the Schönburg principalities by the Kingdom of Saxony in 1878, Lößnitz received a Royal Saxon District Court, which existed until 1931.

In the First World War in 1917 were bronze - bells of St. John's Church and the Hospital Church melted down. By 1920 the St. Johanniskirche received three new bells. In 1939 a carillon consisting of 23 bronze bells was installed in the tower lantern of the church .

When the end of the Second World War was in sight, the Second Mayor Rudolf Weber wanted to hand over the city to the Americans on April 20, 1945 without a fight, whereupon the Waffen-SS present in the city ordered him to be shot dead. In his honor, the Lößnitz city administration later had a plaque attached to the town hall. Between 1985 and 1992 a large settlement area developed on the outskirts of the city, in which almost half of the population lives in the 21st century.

Population development

The following population figures (from 1982) refer to December 31 of the previous year with the territorial status January 2007:

1546 to 1939

1546: 0135
1750: 0458
1834: 4.108
1871: 5,332
1890: 5,886
1910: 7.378
1925: 7.742
1939: 7,481

1946 to 1986

1946: 7.786
1950: 9,488
1964: 8,542
1982: 8,876
1983: 8,780
1984: 8,724
1985: 8,648
1986: 8,500

1987 to 1994

1987: 08,484
1988: 10.205
1989: 11,620
1990: 12,270
1991: 12,951
1992: 13.098
1993: 13.056
1994: 12.801

1995 to 2002

1995: 12,555
1996: 12.302
1997: 12.041
1998: 11,760
1999: 11,527
2000: 11,262
2001: 11,068
2002: 10,769

2003 to 2013

2003: 10.601
2004: 10,479
2005: 10,374
2006: 10.184
2007: 10.035
2009: 09,619
2012: 09,142
2013: 08,985

2014 to

2017: 8559
2018: 8389

Sources: Digital Historical Directory of Saxony (1546–1964), State Statistical Office of the Free State of Saxony (from 1982)

The maximum number of inhabitants was in the mid-1990s, after many people moved in from the surrounding areas due to the housing shortage in the Altlandkreis Aue due to the housing shortage at that time. This trend was reversed relatively quickly, as new, modern living space was also emerging in the places of origin. So many went back again. Some also moved to the old federal states because of the job .

Niederloessnitz

Today's district of Niederlößnitz was originally a farming village below the tributary of the Aubache into the Lößnitzbach . The first known mention of the place as Niderlesenitzs dates back to 1497 . About 100 years later the place already had 6 possessed men . One of the goods was exempt from forced labor and served as a stately hunting lodge. A. Schuhmann mentioned two grinding mills and a paper mill in his lexicon in 1820 . The paper mill, which is said to have been a Zain- and weapon hammer , burned down in 1808 and was not rebuilt. Towards the end of the 19th century, the railway line between Zwönitz and Aue was put into operation, where the Unterer Bahnhof stop was opened in 1885 . After the construction of the train station, residential quarters and industrial buildings were built, which ultimately resulted in the incorporation of the Waldhufendorf Niederlößnitz into the town of Lößnitz in 1898.

politics

City council

Information from the State Statistical Office of Saxony on local elections in Lößnitz can be found here:

The city council was re-elected in May 2019 and is composed as follows:

Members of the current city council
Surname	fraction
Alexander Troll, Mayor	CDU
Barbara Schöberl, 1st honorary deputy to the mayor	CDU
Lutz Hahn	CDU
Michael Andrä	CDU
Thomas Klan	CDU
Dandy Neubert	CDU
Kurt Günther	CDU
Christoph Schlick, 2nd honorary deputy to the mayor	DIE LINKE / SPD
Peter Eichler	DIE LINKE / SPD
Sandy Geisler-Hahnel	DIE LINKE / SPD
Andreas Voss	DIE LINKE / SPD
Clemens Liebscher	WV MHERZ
Lars Hoffmann	WV MHERZ
Uwe Kaufmann	WV MHERZ
Willi Kreutel	WV Förderverein Kindergarten, Schule, Hort Affalter eV
Katrin Paul	WV Förderverein, kindergarten, school, after-school care Affalter eV
Matthias Henke	non-attached (AfD)

mayor

In June 2015, Alexander Troll was elected as Gotthard Troll's successor in the second ballot.

City arms

The Lößnitz city coat of arms shows a black St. Andrew's cross (the coat of arms of the Burgraves of Meißen and founder of the city) on a yellow background. The St. Andrew's Cross is surrounded by three towers supported on a symbolically depicted wall on a red background. The wall and towers are references to the former defensive strength of the city, the three towers symbolize the former three city gates.

Town twinning

Since 1990 there has been a town partnership with the Westphalian town of Borgholzhausen .

Culture and sights

see also: List of cultural monuments in Lößnitz

St. John's Church, consecrated in 1826.

Educational trail

The inner-city nature trail explains the city's buildings and history.

Buildings

Old town with market square, former post office building, restaurant Zum Pranger
Parts of the former city wall with the Rösselturm
City parish church St. Johannis from 1826
It is the largest classical church in the Ore Mountains. The tower lantern has been home to Germany’s second oldest bronze carillon since 1939 . It consists of 23 bells from the Apolda bell foundry Franz Schilling Söhne.

Hospital Church St. Georg (Lößnitz) from 1714

Town hall with the town hall portal from 1601
Aunt Campus .

Folk festivals and markets

Draffaller village festival
Lößnitz salt market (third weekend in June)
Natural market (in September)
Purebred poultry show
Vaulting tournament (May)
Weekly market every Thursday
Christmas market (always on the weekend of the 3rd Advent)

The “Erzgebirgische Heimattag”, which has been held since 2016, caused controversy because, according to research by journalists, there was a personal overlap between the organizer association Haamitleit e. V. and the Erzgebirge offshoot of the Identitarian Movement (IB) classified as right-wing extremist by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution .

There was a small request in the Saxon state parliament from the member Valentin Lippmann (Alliance 90 / THE GREENS parliamentary group) on September 14th, 2016, which was answered by the then Interior Minister Markus Ulbig as follows: "The state government has no knowledge of this."

Memorials

Weber memorial plaque

Memorial plaque at the entrance to the town hall in memory of Mayor Rudolf Weber, who was murdered by SS men

Grave field with three memorial stones in the local cemetery for the 19 Soviet prisoners of war buried here who had to do forced labor in the slate mine during the Second World War and perished due to the inhuman living conditions

Memorial stone on the small town hall forecourt for the victims of fascism

Economy and Infrastructure

economy

Market rights were also no longer limited to the salt trade, so that the citizens and traders gained some wealth over the centuries. With the general industrialization that began around 1850, Lößnitz became an important industrial center of the western Ore Mountains. Above all, companies in the shoe industry, mechanical engineering, textile finishing and processing and the metal goods industry developed. The mining of slate around the city for wall and roof cladding was also important for a long time. With the German reunification there were profound changes in the region and the loss of a large part of the domestic industry.

traffic

The federal highway 169 runs through the local area. The next motorway exits from the A 72 are Hartenstein or Stollberg.

Lößnitz is on the Chemnitz – Aue railway line ( Zwönitztalbahn ) and has two train stations (upper station, lower station). Rail traffic is carried out by the Erzgebirgsbahn , a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn AG. In local transport - as with the bus routes that come into contact with Lößnitz - the tariff of the Central Saxony transport association applies .

Lößnitz ob Bf stop (2016)
Lößnitz stop and train station (2016)

Personalities

literature

Between Zwickauer Mulde and Geyerschem Wald (= values of our homeland . Volume 31). 1st edition. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1978.
Dieter Kutschke, Bernd Ullrich: On the history of slate mining near Loessnitz in Saxony on the northern edge of the Ore Mountains . In: Der Anschnitt 63 (2011) Heft 4/5, pp. 168-184
Gotthelf Friedrich Oesfeld: Historical description of some strange cities in the Erzgebürge - specialty of the Hochgräfl. Schönburgl. freyen Bergstadt Lößnitz in the Erzgebirge with its surrounding areas . Halle, 1776/77; Reprint 1998
Loessnitz . In: August Schumann : Complete State, Post and Newspaper Lexicon of Saxony. 5th volume. Schumann, Zwickau 1818, pp. 811-821.
Loessnitz (city) . In: August Schumann : Complete State, Post and Newspaper Lexicon of Saxony. 17th volume. Schumann, Zwickau 1830, pp. 967-971.
Richard Steche : Lössnitz. In: Descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments of the Kingdom of Saxony. 8th booklet: Amtshauptmannschaft Schwarzenberg . CC Meinhold, Dresden 1887, p. 22.
Loessnitz. In: Siegfried Sieber “Aue and the surrounding area”, Berlin 1927

Web links

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

Wikivoyage: Lößnitz - travel guide

Official website of the city
Lößnitz in the Digital Historical Directory of Saxony
Literature about Lößnitz in the Saxon Bibliography

Individual evidence

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

↑ StBA: Changes in the municipalities in Germany, see 1999

↑ ^a ^b Municipalities 1994 and their changes since January 1st, 1948 in the new federal states , Metzler-Poeschel publishing house, Stuttgart, 1995, ISBN 3-8246-0321-7 , publisher: Federal Statistical Office

^ Ernst Eichler and Hans Walther : Saxony. All city names and their history , Faber and Faber Verlag, Leipzig 2007 ISBN 978-3-86730-038-4 , p. 187

↑ ^a ^b ^c Reisezeit im Erzgebirge , Spring / Summer 2014 edition, page 14

↑ Manfred Wilde: The sorcery and witch trials in Kursachsen , Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2003, p. 511f.

↑ ^a ^b The Hospital Church Sankt-Georg ( Memento from September 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive )

↑ Gisela Reller: The Living and the Dead , in: The Zero Hour , Berlin 1966, p. 47

↑ Population development in the Free State of Saxony by municipalities in 2016. Accessed on January 9, 2019 .

↑ Population of the Free State of Saxony at the end of each month for selected reporting months by municipality. Retrieved January 9, 2019 .

↑ https://www.statistik.sachsen.de/wpr_alt/pkg_s10_bmlr.prc_erg_bm_a?p_bz_bzid=BM151&p_ebene=GE&p_ort=14521370

↑ ^a ^b City Church of the Bergstadt Lößnitz ( Memento from December 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

↑ Draffaller village festival; Example from 2010 ( Memento from June 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

↑ Andrea Röpke , Andreas Speit : Völkische Landnahme. Old clans, young settlers, right-wing ecos. Ch.links Verlag, Berlin 2019, p. 168

↑ Kira Ayyadi: Erzgebirge in Saxony: How young people in right-wing extremist strongholds hold against it. Belltower.News , August 27, 2019

[Metadaten_Einwohnerzahl_DE-SN-1] Population of the Free State of Saxony by municipalities on December 31, 2019 ( help on this ).

[destatis.de-2] StBA: Changes in the municipalities in Germany, see 1999