Lauscha

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coat of arms Germany map
Coat of arms of the city of Lauscha
Lauscha
Map of Germany, position of the city of Lauscha highlighted

Coordinates: 50 ° 29 '  N , 11 ° 10'  E

Basic data
State : Thuringia
County : Sonneberg
Height : 625 m above sea level NHN
Area : 18.72 km 2
Residents: 3260 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density : 174 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code : 98724
Area code : 036702
License plate : SON, NH
Community key : 16 0 72 011

City administration address :
Bahnhofstrasse 12
98724 Lauscha
Website : www.lauscha.de
Mayor : Norbert Zitzmann ( SPD )
Location of the city of Lauscha in the district of Sonneberg
Föritztal Frankenblick Goldisthal Lauscha Neuhaus am Rennweg Schalkau Sonneberg Steinach (Thüringen)map
About this picture
Evangelical town church

Lauscha is a country town in the Thuringian district of Sonneberg . The town, made famous by the glassblowing trade, is located in the Franconian south of the Free State.

geography

Lauscha is located in the Thuringian Slate Mountains between the cities of Sonneberg , Ilmenau and Saalfeld . The city is located in a north-eastern side valley of the Steinach below the mountain ridge. The Lauscha train station is 611  m above sea level. NN , the southernmost point at the confluence of the Göritz in the Steinach 515 m above sea level. NN. The Pappenheimer Berg rises 834.5 m above sea level. NN.

Neighboring communities

Clockwise, starting in the northwest: Neuhaus am Rennweg , Sonneberg , Steinach

Neuhaus am Rennweg Neuhaus am Rennweg, district of Lichte Neuhaus am Rennweg, district of Piesau
Neighboring communities Sonneberg , Hasenthal district
Neuhaus am Rennweg, Steinheid district Steinach Sonneberg, district Haselbach

City structure

Ernstthal , located northeast of the city, has been a district of Lauscha since 1994. The actual urban area has no administrative structure; due to the geographical conditions, a distinction is occasionally made between Oberlauscha , which is located around Oberlandstrasse and the Köpplein mountain , the center around Hüttenplatz ( dos Duurf ) and Unterlauscha , located in the south of the city in the lower Lauschatal .

Waters

year Notation
1366 lutzscha
1549 lauschnitz
1555 Lautzschaw
1569 Lautzsche
1597 Lauschaw
1601 in the Lauscha
1608 in the eavesdropping
1615 the Laußnitz
1621 in the lauschaw
1659 in the Lauscha
1703 the listen
1781 Listen

The name of the valley and the settlement was derived from the Lauscha water body, which is known as lutzscha (according to the German dictionary (Jacob Grimm), probably something like " Wildbach " or "Bach am Ansitz " from ahd "lūzēn", mhd "lûzen", in the 16th century . "Lauszen", Lauschner "lunzen", high German "lugen" / "lauern" / "lauschen") was first mentioned in a document in 1366 in a Schwarzburg registry. In the late Middle Ages, the clear mountain water was a prerequisite for glassmaking as drinking water and energy source . According to the founding legend, it was also the reason why the first glassmakers settled here (“Lausch ', a Bach!”). In addition, the availability of the raw materials quartz sand in two different qualities, a relatively silt-free , suitable for comparatively light glass and a darker, but UV-absorbing glass (" forest glass ") producing from the nearby stone quarries of Steinheider Sandberg, the flux and spoke Glasbinder's soda (made from burnt tuff from the quarries around Weißenbrunn , the hardening agent lime was also obtained from there) and potash (flux and to lower the melting point, boiled from beech wood itself, from 1755 onwards in the villages of Sonneberg , Bettelhecken , Mürschnitz , hammering was allowed and Steinheid ash) as well as a large amount of firewood for the settlement of the glass industry in the Lauschatal.

Village mill, in the core from 1601
Main building of the former Wiesleinsmühle from 1824
Lauschatal from the church hill on the Köpplein looking south, on the left Kleiner and behind it Großer Tierberg, on the right Teufelsholz, the slope in front on the right leads to the Steiniger Hügel
View into the Lauschatal from Teufelsholz to the Köpplein, behind it the Igelskuppe is covered, the Brehmenstall in the center, on the right the Pappenheimer Berg with the Ernstthaler Steig on the horizon, on the right in front Kleiner Tierberg

The Lauschabach is formed below Ernstthal from the Hedgehog and the Ernstthaler Wässerlein. His way down into the valley is described by characterizing epithets: the lazy Lauscha flows slowly over a meadow while still on the plateau, the lively Lauscha squeezes through the narrow Lauschatal. Their water power was used several times: through the upper mill, called "Ernstthaler Mühle" or "Finstergundmühle" in the 19th century, a glassworks in 1856 and the location of the gymnasium since 1969, through the village mill opposite the Hüttenplatz, from 1601 at the same time the cutting and grinding mill 1644 through the Wiesleinsmühle, originally a grinding mill, 1733 brewery and pub, from 1743 through the glass grinding mill of the glass grinder Georg Friedrich Knye (* 1674; † 1764) below the Wiesleinsmühle, through the Untermühle ("Engelhardtsmühle"), a Märbelmühle, and the Göritzmühle , as a "Heubachsmühle" a grinding, mass and cutting mill, later a factory for pharmaceutical glass, i.e. containers for medicines. The last two mills mentioned are located below the mouth of the Lauschabach on the Steinach. Above the mouth of the Lauscha, a blast furnace was built in 1604, the founding core of Unterlauscha.

With the completion of the railway line and the road connection from Steinach to Neuhaus through the narrow and swampy valley at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the Lauschabach was largely relocated into an underground canal through the center of the village. Before the central Lauschabach was piped, the connecting paths led along the slope, as indicated by the street names Alter Weg (today Bahnweg) and Alte Chaussee . Because the patchwork-like patchwork of the local building material, large slabs of slate , was repeatedly damaged by floods during the melting of the snow, the stream was completely enclosed in a new reinforced concrete building from 2002 to 2007 . In the lowlands , the Lauschabach flows, again openly, into the Steinach.

The upper Steinach valley has also been part of the Lauscha district since 1729. It is largely uninhabited and is now reserved for tourism. This is where the swimming pool, built in 1923 and expanded in 1962, is located, which was converted into a heated adventure pool after the fall of the Wall. With the financial year 2016, the city of Lauscha gave up the operation of the pool, but on November 28, 2016 concluded an operator contract with the swimming pool association founded on August 28, 2016.

Nearby is the former Rosenburg inn , now a private house. The owners of the Ebermannsmühle , a former pulp mill located approx. 500 m up the valley , were granted permission to sell bottled beer in 1909, to serve beer in 1929 and to sell butter, eggs and cow cheese in 1953. In 1957, after the expropriation of the Ebermann family, the property became a vacation home of the VEB Mansfeld Kombinat "Wilhelm Pieck" , and from 1990 to 1993 it was an asylum seeker home. In 2003 the holiday property "Wanderparadies im Steinachtal" was built in its place. The Totenweg branches off from Steinachtal to Steinheid, on which the deceased had to be transported until a branch community was established in 1732.

By the turn of the 20th century, tree trunks were rafted through the valley from the Wächtersteich to the Alte Mutter, another source stream of the Steinach, for transport to a sawmill. In the far south, at the Göritzmühle on the border with Steinheid and Steinach, the Göritzbach flows into the Steinach. In 1995 the city of Lauscha put a new waterworks into operation in a gorge-like side valley, which opens up various sources in the Göritzgrund for the city's drinking water supply. When the deep well was decommissioned at the end of 2006, the drinking water protection zone in Göritzgrund was lifted.

mountains

Typical of the Thuringian Slate Mountains , plateau-like mountain ridges, mostly with dense spruce forest, surround the deeply cut Lauschatal, on whose steep slopes the narrow streets and small alleys of the town nestle. These are clockwise: below the Rennsteig east of the upper Lauschabach the Brehmenstall ( 776  m above sea level ) in the district of Ernstthal, further east the Pappenheimer Berg (834.5 m above sea level), to the south adjoining it the Kleine (769 m above sea level). NN) and the Große Tierberg (806 m above sea level) with the Schnitzerskopf (760 m above sea level) high above the center of Lauscha.

In the south of the urban area opposite the Großer Tierberg, west of the Steinach valley, the Göritzberg (793 m above sea level) forms the border with Steinach and Steinheid. It stretches along the upper Steinach like the Eisenberg (852.5 m above sea level) to the northwest as far as Steinheid. The Große Zigeunerberg (820 m above sea level) and to the east of the Kleine Zigeunerberg (791 m above sea level) rise between the source stream Steinach and the northeastern tributary Alte Mutter. In the north-west of the Mittelberg (807 m above sea level) and in the north of the Bornhügel (846 m above sea level) lead to the Rennsteig.

Rock house above the Lauschenstein

Opposite the northeast flank of the Göritzberg, west of the Lauscha valley branching off from the Steinachgrund, the Teufelsholz (745 m above sea level) rises above Unterlauscha with the Lauschenstein, a mighty slate rock on which the Felsenhäuschen refuge was built in 1886 . The Eller, a saddle (696 m above sea level) with a ski slope ("Bocksrangen") in the valley of the Steinach, that leads to the Steiniger Hügel, joins the town center high above Lauscha, where the Croatian Guard has been known since the Thirty Years' War (765 m above sea level). During the GDR era, there was a children's holiday camp here , which the VEB Sachsenring Zwickau established and maintained. The Igelskuppe (800 m above sea level) in the west of the upper Lauschabach forms the northern end of the Rennsteig. To the south of it, the Köpplein ( the Kupp , 781 m above sea level, also called "Ahorn" until the 19th century) rises in the Oberland in the middle of the Lauscha city area.

history

The era of the founding of smelters

Hüttenplatz 3, home of the glassmaker Christoph Müller

Lauscha was founded by building a glassworks . The glass maker Hans Greiner and Christoph Müller received on 10 January 1597 of Duke Johann Casimir to Saxe-Coburg hereditary concession for operating a glass factory in Multertiegel , ie where now houses the then named Hüttenplatz after a first settlement attempt from 1589 about 600 m up the valley, not far from today's colored glassworks in Marktiegel , the claims of the local landlord, the aging Reichserbmarschall Christoff Ullrich von Pappenheim zu Graefenthal , had failed. For 12 guilders of hereditary interest annually on Michaelis (29 September), 1 shock drinking glasses annually for keeping the court and a price reduction of one pfennig on all other glasses requested by the court, the glassmakers got space for the glassworks and two houses, the ground below the hut up to The Lauscha flows into the Steinach, a total of 42 acres of Wiesenrod , and the bottom on both sides of the Faulen Lauscha (below the market seal), a total of 30 acres of building land, arable and meadow clearing land (approx. 21 ha in total), the Lauscha fishing water and the right to set up a cutting mill, to keep cattle and herd them in the forest and to build three more houses, plus tax exemption for the table drink. The power required to operate the cabin wood they were given for 4 dime forest rent for the cords of from 42 allocated Geräumen, to wood as Schneideblöcher to 3 Hellern or each zwölfschuhige Bloch for 18 pennies. The Hüttenknecht Bock acquired a farm next to the hut on the Tierberg, 1 field of Rodeland and 5 fields of Meadowrod. If a glass master or a smelter wants to sell his house, he shouldn't sell it to strangers who are not glass makers. The forester in francs and Schösser to Neustadt and Sonneberg were instructed to protect the glass master and cottage servants in their rights.

A wood-burning stove

The glass furnace of the hut had 6 stalls on each side, the Müller family on the west side and the Greiner family on the east side. However, through inheritance and the marriage of the Böhm family in 1691, the shares in the workshops grew quickly. The unusual cooperative operator model was accompanied by strict guild-like isolation and a deep religious community. Every working day started with a chorale .

During the Thirty Years War , the young village was spared acts of war. Croatian mercenaries in imperial service, who, under the command of General Guillaume de Lamboy, devastated Sonneberg Castle and the surrounding area after the defeat of the Protestant side in the Battle of Nördlingen and the unsuccessful siege of Kronach in 1635 , did not find access to the upper Steinachtal. However, the economic decline in the surrounding area led to a famine that almost forced the Lauscha people to give up their settlement. The large-scale increase in demand for slug panes due to the destruction during the war saved the Lauscha glassworks from bankruptcy. But after the Peace of Westphalia , sales of glass for everyday use, such as drinking glasses in various shapes and sizes and pharmacist glass for the olive grocer , and of luxury goods, especially made of leg glass , quickly increased again.

The younger sons of the glass masters who were not entitled to inheritance kept building new glassworks in the area, around which new settlements emerged. Such foundations of the communities Schmalenbuche (1607, today Neuhaus am Rennweg), which itself became the starting point for foundations such as Alsbach (1711), Habichtsbach (1735) and Sophienthal (1768), the later Grumbach (1615), von Piesau ( 1622), Klein-Tettau (1661) and the Glücksthal settlement (1736), which was abandoned again in 1856 . Lauscha glass masters of the Greiner family revived the glassworks in Bischofsgrün that had been abandoned by the Müller family after a fire in 1616 , settled in Altenfeld in 1646 and in Stützerbach in 1656 and founded a glassworks at An der Sieglitze in 1698 . So Lauscha became the mother glass factory for glass production in the Thuringian Forest . Other glassworks were also built in and around Lauscha; In 1720 in the former Pappenheimer Forst a chair glass factory for thread glass goblets in Henriettenthal , which, like all the Graefenthal estates of the Pappenheim family, was sold to Sachsen-Altenburg in 1621 and was passed on to Sachsen-Saalfeld in the meantime and was only incorporated into Lauscha in 1946 together with Finstergrund-Obermühle . Ernstthal was also founded in 1707 by glass masters from Lauscha by building a glassworks. The Koehler settlement Igelshieb (probably created after a forest fire around 1624 and separated from Lauscha in 1740 and parish to Neuhaus) and the porcelain factory in Limbach , which can be traced back to a glassworks, are further foundations related to the flourishing glass industry in the Lauscha region.

Limbach was founded in 1731 as a glassworks by the brothers Johann Gottfried, Martin and Gottlieb Greiner and their brother-in-law Michael Gundelach, the founder of a glass and faience works in Siegmundsburg . Johann Gotthelf Greiner , who was born in Alsbach in 1732, invented porcelain independently of Johann Friedrich Böttger and with a slightly modified chemical composition in years of research and converted the Limbach glassworks into the first Thuringian porcelain factory in 1751. In 1764 he helped found the porcelain factory in Wallendorf . The Schwarzburg theologian Georg Heinrich Macheleid experimented with his cousin Johann Georg Greiner, glass and smelter of Glücksthal, Oberalsbach and Sophienthal and royal Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt court agent and councilor, and in 1757 he developed his technology for making porcelain. This resulted in the Sitzendorf - Volkstedt porcelain factory . Johann Christoph Friedrich Greiner, glass and smelter and merchant and merchant of Lauscha and Henriettenthal, ducal Saxon-Coburg councilor and heir, feudal and court lord of Ehnes and Scherneck founded in 1783 with Johann Georg Greiner and his son Christian Daniel Siegmund Greiner, ducal of Saxony -Meiningischer Hofkommissarius and owner of the manors Ehnes and Katzberg , a manufactory in Rauenstein , which existed as a porcelain factory Rauenstein until 1930. In 1817 he bought the old iron and steel works in Hüttensteinach to convert it into a porcelain factory. The beginnings of the porcelain industry were followed by the establishment of sheet glass works , the Marienthal ironworks (1828), the founding of District Administrator W. Müller on the site of an old blast furnace in Toxiggrund on the Rögitz, and the Greinersche Hütte Bernhardsthal (1829) near Glücksthal.

Home work and industrialization in the 18th and 19th centuries

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha with their children Christmas 1848 in The Illustrated Londons News
Lauscha artificial eyes 1835
The Lauscha post office on a postage stamp of the German Federal Post Office

In the middle of the 18th century, the glassworks no longer offered enough work for the rapidly growing town (Lauscha had 490 inhabitants in 1781, then 2,228 in 1871), and new sources of income had to be developed. In between 1730 and 1770, imported glassblower Johann Greiner Habekuk ( Sixer ) glassware manufacture in homework before the lamp from the Rhineland by observing the local glass blowers and the experimental Reproduce its technology on which the pioneering years Johann Greiner Tamerlan involved, to Lauscha. Glass jewelry gradually appeared, around 1762 hollow-blown pearls, which were soon sold in large quantities, then also glass figures and animals. In 1847 a glass blower from Lauscha invented glass decorations for the Christmas tree . In the following year, the first Christmas balls, large painted glass beads, were made in various sizes beyond the company's own needs, as a received order book proves. From these, the Christmas tree balls developed , which by 1860 had included all major Sonneberg toy stores and publishing houses in their range. From around 1870 they were mirrored with silver nitrate. Frank Winfield Woolworth first exported them to the USA around 1880 , and around 1900 he was already ordering around 200,000 balls and figurative Christmas tree decorations per year for his department store chain.

Porcelain painting developed from glass painting when Johann Karl Ens , who had learned the porcelain painting trade in the margravial porcelain factory in Bruckberg and had worked for Johann Gotthelf Greiner in Limbach, settled in Lauscha. Porcelain painters from Lauscha were involved in the founding of the Aeltesten Volkstedter Porcelain Manufactory , the Wallendorf Porcelain Manufactory and the Porcelain Manufactory in Rauenstein . The factories in Ilmenau (1777) and Großbreitenbach (1779), the porcelain factories at Kloster Veilsdorf (1760, 1797) and in Hüttensteinach are also linked to their work. In Lauscha itself, the production of artistically painted porcelain pipe bowls was important. The best-known porcelain painter was Friedrich Karl Ens (* 1802; † November 5, 1865), who joined the porcelain painting Günther Greiner & Georg Wilhelm Greiner Sohn in 1837 (now Ens & Greiner), set up his own workshop in Igelshieb and held shares in the Volkstedter Porzellanmanufaktur acquired. Around 1850 he employed up to 150 people, but after his death this branch of business quickly lost its importance in Lauscha.

Main pumping station in 1910
Substation 1925/26

In 1835, Ludwig Müller-Uri made an artificial human eye out of glass for the first time in a quality never seen before. The Lauscha artificial eyes revolutionized the care of patients who had lost an eye as a result of an accident, illness or war. During the production of massive animal eyes made of glass for the Sonneberger doll factories, his son-in-law Johann Christian Simon Carl Greiner ( es a'lt Vetterla ) invented the Märbelschere in 1848, a device for the production of glass marbles , which Elias Greiner described in 1849 as "artificial agate and gemstone balls" patented. With the capital of his company Elias Greiner-Vetter-Sohn, which had produced paints for glass and porcelain painting, he founded today's Farbglashütte ( Seppenhütte ) in 1853 , originally as Märbelhütte. This supplied the semi-finished products, glass rods and glass tubes, for the home industry, which became the formative business model. In 1856 the Louis Robert Greiner-Bock & Co glassworks ( Schlotfegerhütte ) was founded a little below the Farbglashütte and a little above in the former Saxony-Saalfeld area the founding of the Obermühle glassworks , from 1897 Kühnertshütte , and in 1862 the Eugen Eichhorn glassworks in neighboring Steinach. While the home workers had initially used oil lamps and, from 1850, paraffin lamps, the flame of which they reinforced with the help of bellows as early as 1820, with the construction of the gas station opposite the later train station in 1867 and the construction of a gas pipeline network , they were able to use more powerful gas blowers and thus cryolite glass for eye prosthetics (1868) and other colored glass mixtures that can be made more thin-walled, more diverse and more filigree. Together with the city of Sonneberg, the community participated in the Neustadt near Coburg gas works in 1921 and switched to the less expensive and less crisis-prone remote supply in 1923. In the same year Lauscha was connected to the electricity network.

When the "Saalfelder Chaussee" to Neuhaus was opened in 1801, the road to Steinach in 1825, the railway to Sonneberg in 1886 and finally the railway to Neuhaus and Probstzella in 1913 , this opened up access to the toy metropolises, the overseas ports and the markets of the world. The manufacture of glass apparatus , the manufacture of medical instruments and containers, the glass spinning of “fairy hair”, the forerunner of glass fiber (around 1890), the development of the incandescent lamp , the fluorescent tube and the electron tube , the technical and chemical glass industry all began. In 1923 the Brehmenstall glassworks in Ernstthal went into operation, on January 24, 1924 the Johann Georg Schneider company ( Schneidershütte ) on a site on Köpplein, which had previously been used as a gravel works for railway construction, was incorporated in 1906. It was the last new hut to be founded in Lauscha.

The first school from 1768 was replaced by a new schoolhouse in 1849–1851, which later housed the vocational school and in which the museum was housed from 1903 to 2013. In 1868 the “new school” was built, today's town hall. A post office was set up in 1862 and a telegraph station in 1875, and on October 1, 1886 the post office building built by the Elias Greiner-Vetters-Sohn company and leased to the Reichspost was ceremoniously opened for use. In 1889, Duke Georg II of Saxony-Meiningen visited the glassblowing community, which was booming economically, but which was also repeatedly ravaged by epidemics such as smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, dysentery and whooping cough. The German imperial family also valued the Lauscha Christmas tree decorations as a non-denominational symbol of national customs in the young German Empire . In 1897 the train station school (from 1949 “Goethe School”) and in 1906 the Kirchweg School was inaugurated. Lauscha has had a drinking water network since 1902. On July 12, 1902, the establishment of a volunteer fire brigade the evening before was officially announced, and in 1938/39 it was given an extinguishing equipment house. The first village glassworks was demolished in 1905 and made room for the town center. With the inauguration of the Protestant church after 13 months of construction on September 17, 1911, on the site of a small baroque chapel, the "Kirchleins auf dem Berg" from 1732, high above the center of the village with the small town houses supplied with it, it got its present appearance .

Development in the 20th century

Glassblowing workshop from Lauscha, around 1930 ( Museum of Thuringian Folklore Erfurt )

With the establishment of the Meininger Oberlandes eG glassblower cooperative in 1907 on the initiative of the social democrat Eduard Wagner, the glassblowers created an alternative to the Sonneberg publishers , who until then had dominated the sale of glassware and were able to control and influence both prices and sales, which enabled the Homeworkers were dependent on them. The cooperative was also economically successful during the First World War and the Great Depression. Thanks to their good export results, glassware production was given a further boost, and profit margins also rose. These should expressly benefit the improvement of the living conditions of the glassblowers. On this basis, the SPD and KPD factions in the municipal council were able to decide on charitable measures, despite deep disagreements among themselves, in order to mitigate the consequences of war (Lauscha lamented 221 dead ) and inflation for the needy population. With the support of their aid organizations, the Arbeiterwohlfahrt and the Red Aid Germany , they organized children's recreational transports to Westphalia, Altona and Nuremberg for the children of the glassblower families whose health was affected by malnutrition, the cramped living conditions and the strenuous work in the small businesses. The consumer association was founded as early as 1873 to improve the community's supply situation.

At the beginning of the 1930s, the work of the cooperative became more difficult due to the growing influence of the NSDAP in Coburg and Sonneberg . At the end of 1932 she had to file for bankruptcy. Immediately after the Reichstag fire on February 27, 1933, mainly communist members of the council, including Gustav Huhn, Max Leipold ( Metten ), Franz Müller-Deck ( Franz blankets ) and Paul Greiner-Pachter, were arrested and interned in the Nohra concentration camp. The trade unionists Wilhelm Böhm, Max Greiner-Bär and Robert Müller had to submit to the daily reporting obligation. After the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 , Max Leipold, Albin Bäz ( Bäzen Fried ) and Elias Böhm-Hennes were arrested and interned again. During the Second World War 121 military internees from Italy as well as women and men from Russia, the Ukraine, the Netherlands, France and Poland had to do forced labor with Dipl.-Ing. Strong and perform at Elias Greiner-Vetters Sohn in Lauscha, in the Brehmenstall glassworks and at the Gebrüder Anschütz company in Ernstthal. After 1939, no more Christmas tree decorations were made. The first family businesses only started production again after the war. Shortly before the end of the war, on April 12, 1945, the " Volkssturm " blew up a small road bridge, the Eichhornsbrücke in Unterlauscha, in order to block the road from the approaching units of the 11th Panzer Division of the 3rd US Army , which had been released the night before by the surrounding mountains had taken the neighboring town of Neuhaus under artillery fire. The bridge could not be repaired until 1953 as part of the NAW .

Post-war and modern times

Glass fiber production in the Lauscha glass factory, 1972

On July 3, 1945, the Red Army occupied southern Thuringia. Lauscha thus belonged to the Soviet occupation zone , from 1949 to the GDR and from 1952 to the Neuhaus am Rennweg district in the Suhl district . On December 15, 1953, Lauscha became a resort, which was granted city rights on January 1, 1958. From June 12th to 13th, 1946, a hurricane devastated large areas of the forest around the Steinach Valley. The entire local population, mostly women, old people and children, took part in the reforestation. In 1958 another storm caused severe damage. Glass production was organized in the VEB Glaswerke Lauscha in 1946 and in a craft cooperative in 1948. The gas supply was ensured by hydrogenated lignite from Borna .

From 1950 the operation of the former Queck glass spinning mill , at that time a Soviet joint-stock company , was moved from the premises in the Straße des Friedens to the former tailor's hut, which went bankrupt in 1936, where a new spinning hall was completed in 1953 and put into operation using the traditional rod drawing process . The manufacture of fine fibers , insulation materials , retroreflective coatings for traffic signs made from micro glass spheres (Ballotini) and other products of the technical and chemical glass industry of the glass works in Oberlauscha, Steinach and the foam glass works Taubenbach was bundled in VEB TRISOLA Steinach from January 1, 1970. Since it was taken over by the Hildesheim citizens group in 1992, the Oberlauschaer Hütte has been operating under the name Lauscha Fiber International GmbH. By 1998, the production of microfine glass fibers was gradually converted to the rotation and flame blowing processes. On January 1, 2013, UNIFRAX Corp. Summerville SC, USA, the LFI.

In the 1960s, neon advertising was made out of hand-formed neon tubes in the VEB neon lighting plant . In 1965 the PGH built “10. Anniversary “the former Louis Robert Greiner-Bock & Co glassworks. VEB Farbglaswerk, established in 1971 through nationalization of the Greiner family's shares, put a modern new building into operation in 1979 on the site of the old colored glassworks Elias Greiner Vetters Sohn, which had replaced the wooden hut that had burned down in 1895. In 1981, the art glass blowing was combined in the VEB Glaskunst and the production of Christmas tree decorations in the VEB Glasschmuck. The foreign exchange-intensive glass jewelery production was temporarily switched to large-scale machine production. The construction of a system (KUBLA) was successful in Lauscha, with which glass spheres could be produced without seams and without compromising on quality, although the mirroring, decoration and packaging remained manual work. But many Lauschaer also worked in the countryside, especially in the of a Telefunken emerged -Werk VEB Röhrenwerk "Anna Seghers", later VEB microelectronics Neuhaus in Neuhaus am Rennweg, which after 1990 settled was.

In Lauscha, there was a return to traditional glass jewelry production after reunification . Today, the glass Christmas tree decorations are made using original craftsmanship using processes, molds and tools that are more than 100 years old. In 1992 the gas supply was switched to natural gas . The art glassblowing workshops still get their semi-finished products from the color glass works, which was privatized in 1995 and expanded in 1999 to include a spacious visitor area. The Lauscha Glass Center was opened in 2003 on the site of the PGH glass factory demolished in 1998. A wastewater treatment plant that went into operation on October 23, 2006 and which has also been receiving wastewater from Ernstthal since 2014, meets the increased environmental requirements for wastewater treatment .

politics

Spatial planning

The city of Lauscha is a small center in the Sonneberg district. Lauscha and the neighboring town of Steinach planned to merge to form Steinach-Lauscha as part of a community reform . The contract for the amalgamation of the two cities was signed on July 20, 2007, the planned common place name was decided on August 3, 2007 by drawing lots on neutral ground in the Bergmannsklause between Steinach-Lauscha and Lauscha-Steinach . However, since no more funds were distributed for voluntary mergers, the Lauscha city council dissolved the merger agreement on September 23, 2009. Instead, a closer cooperation in the city triangle Steinach-Lauscha-Neuhaus am Rennweg is sought. The city association will form a partially functional medium-sized center , which was planned in the 2004 state development plan as the medium-sized center Neuhaus am Rennweg / Lauscha . The first joint project of the municipal working group is the high-altitude hiking trail "6-Kuppensteig", which was awarded the title "Quality Trail Hikable Germany" by the Association of German Mountain and Hiking Associations on January 15, 2011 at the international travel fair CMT Stuttgart . In the course of the Thuringia regional reform in 2018 and 2019 , the cities of Lauscha and Neuhaus began to examine the conditions for the formation of a unified community. However, a merger was declared to have failed at the beginning of 2017 in view of the high debt levels of both cities, although the country had promised almost 2 million euros in aid.

City council

Local elections 2019
Turnout: 55.6% (2014: 45.6%)
 %
30th
20th
10
0
24.6%
23.6%
23.3%
16.6%
6.3%
5.6%
Gains and losses
compared to 2014
 % p
   8th
   6th
   4th
   2
   0
  -2
  -4
  -6
  -8th
-10
-12
+ 6.8  % p
-7.1  % p
-10.8  % p
+ 5.9  % p
-0.5  % p
+ 5.6  % p
Template: election chart / maintenance / notes
Remarks:
b until 2019: Die Linke / Free Voters , until 2004: PDS / FW
d NPD, 1999-2009: DVU

The council of the city of Lauscha consists of 16 councilors. The mayor has an additional vote.

Parties and constituencies %
2019
Seats
2019
%
2014
Seats
2014
%
2009
Seats
2009
%
2004
Seats
2004
%
1999
Seats
1999
%
1994
Seats
1994
CDU 24.6 4th 17.8 3 22.9 4th 16.6 3 39.5 6th 28.3 5
The left 23.6 4th 30.7 5 19.4 3 19.6 3 22.4 4th - -
SPD 23.3 4 + 1 34.1 5 + 1 18.4 3 + 1 11.9 2 + 1 31.2 5 + 1 55.5 9 + 1
NPD 16.6 2 10.7 2 - - - - - - - -
Democratic Citizens List (DBL) 6.3 1 6.6 1 6.8 1 - - - - - -
The party 5.6 1 - - - - - - - - - -
DVU - - - - 11.8 2 8.3 1 6.9 1 - -
Alternative for Lauscha (AfL) - - - - 20.8 3 43.7 7th - - - -
Free Voter List (FWL) - - - - - - - - - - 8.1 1
Alliance 90 / The Greens - - - - - - - - - - 8.1 1
Voter turnout in% 55.6 45.6 50.9 53.1 56.8 80.1

(As of municipal elections on 26 May 2019 ) to the district mayor of the district Ernstthal was re-elected Kerstin Müller-Litz with 91.5% of the vote with a turnout of 51.4% of the electorate.

In the election of the mayor on April 15, 2018 , Norbert Zitzmann, candidate of the SPD, was re-elected with 74.2% of the vote (+ 2.9% compared to 2012). The turnout was 53.7% (−2%).

household

Like the surrounding cities and communities, the city of Lauscha suffers from the consequences of an unfavorable demographic development. Negative factors are a sustained population decline (from 4,459 inhabitants in 1995 to 3,644 in 2010), an unfavorable ratio of births and deaths (15 births and 51 deaths in 2011) and a significant shortage of young women, significantly low trade tax income (1995-2005 on average 41 % of the national average, in 2003 only 11%) and high interest expenses due to high per capita debt. This fell to below € 2,000 for the first time in 2010, but is still 192% of the national average. In 2011, the city's budget was maintained by the Free State of Thuringia in the amount of € 225,000 through a security concept and with the help of allocations of needs and bridging aid from the municipal financial equalization.

Savings are hardly possible anymore, for example the city's personnel expenses are 77%, well below the national average. There are only limited savings potentials with voluntary services, by adapting the infrastructure to the declining number of residents and users of public facilities and by cooperating with neighboring cities. The city council handed over the waterworks in Göritzgrund, for which there were liabilities of € 7.1 million in 2008, to the Sonneberg water and wastewater association, which the city of Lauscha received on January 1, 2009 had joined. The OT Ernstthal joined the special purpose association “Rennsteigwasser” in Neuhaus am Rennsteig. With further austerity measures, the cancellation of all investments and very optimistic tax forecasts, the city council of Lauscha decided on a balanced budget for 2012 and 2013. The district office of Sonneberg approved the budget security concept for the city of Lauscha up to the year 2024 by decision of March 20, 2012.

Due to the comparatively low level of trade tax revenue, a significant decrease in key allocations from the Free State to the city and the increase in the district levy to the Sonneberg district, there is no budget adjustment despite the increase in the assessment rates for property and trade tax in 2015 and in the coming budget years without need allocations from the state compensation stock to reach. A budget security concept drawn up by the city administration on the basis of the provisional 2014 budget for the budget planning for the budget years 2015 to 2025 was approved by the city council on August 3 and again on September 28, 2015 after a majority rejection. The 2016 budget includes the closure of the swimming pool, but allows urgent renovation of the through-town and security work on the Tierberg to continue.

Coat of arms, logo and corporate design

Seal of the Saxon-Meiningischen community Lauscha until 1921
Variant of the city arms for tourist use

The coat of arms shows a stylized piece of glass , a typical Lauscha work, as it is hand-blown and freely formed when working in front of the lamp, in the form of a silver-contoured deer jumping over a green Christmas tree decorated with Christmas tree balls in front of a red background. From 1907 to 1932, this signet was the common trademark of the members of the Meininger Oberland glassblowers' cooperative for Lauscha glassware, under which they achieved worldwide fame. It was colorless then. It existed in many variants, each workshop affiliated to the cooperative used its own graphic design. The signet is often still found as a gold print on white or green packaging cardboard.

In 1921 the local council declared it the Lauscha local coat of arms. The tinging in the former coat of arms colors of the state of Thuringia became binding. When the city was granted city rights on January 1, 1958, the coat of arms became the city coat of arms. In 1906, the municipal council sought to obtain town charter and instructed the local council to apply for town charter. At that time Lauscha (excluding Ernstthal) had grown to 5,516 inhabitants (1905), in the year of the city charter in 1958 the city even had around 6,500 inhabitants and welcomed around 80,000 day visitors and up to 6,000 overnight holidaymakers annually.

Logo of the city of Lauscha

The city of Lauscha has been using a logo since September 30, 2008, developed in 2007 in cooperation with the agency for marketing and communication donner + friends, Erfurt, and the state development company of Thuringia . The corporate design is used for city marketing in image campaigns, in the city's website, in printed matter from the city and the tourism round table, in information boards, in advertising notices at the entrances and in the village and, since August 12, 2009, with regulatory restrictions for tourist information applied to the BAB 73 . Its principles were also taken into account in the architectural redesign and street furniture of the town center.

Since April 12, 2012, the city has been involved in the federal program "PROMOTING TOLERANCE - STRENGTHENING COMPETENCE" of the Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth. Together with the church, clubs, associations and committed citizens, the municipality develops local action plans for diversity, tolerance and democratic action and against right-wing extremist , xenophobic and anti-Semitic tendencies. In 2012 the AWO Sonneberg / Neuhaus realized the project “I am me and who are you?” In the youth center in Obermühle.

Town twinning

Lauscha maintains partnerships with the two German cities of Heubach ( Ostalbkreis ) and Küps ( Kronach district ) and, since September 20, 2015, with the Czech Železný Brod .

Culture and sights

Lauscha glass art and Christmas tree decorations
Color glassworks
Studio glassworks in the Lauscha Glass Center

Lauscha is considered the birthplace of glass Christmas tree and Christmas decorations . This helped the city and its glassblowers to gain reputation. Numerous glass shops and galleries run through the whole place. Many glassblowers can be seen at work. With a history of more than 150 years, the color glassworks is the heart of the glass-blowing town of Lauscha. Here, tubes and rods for further processing arts and crafts are still made by hand. Visitors can experience their creation process. The studio glassworks can be visited in the Lauscha Glass Center.

The Museum of Glass Art collects, documents, researches and presents Thuringian glass in its entire temporal and thematic breadth: from the late Middle Ages to today, from early forest glass to glass beads, glass eyes, toys and technical glass to handicrafts and contemporary glass art. The core of the collection goes back to an exhibition from 1897 on the occasion of the 300th anniversary celebration in Lauscha. In 1903 the museum was set up as a local museum in the "Old School", which opened on February 20, 1851, and in 1929 it was finally restructured into a special museum. Since April 12, 2014, the collection has been shown in new, barrier-free exhibition rooms in the color glass factory.

The glass vocational school is located in Lauscha . Every year up to fifteen young people begin their apprenticeship as glassblowers, specializing in glass design, Christmas tree decorations and making artificial eyes. On February 2, 1923, the vocational school was set up, which in turn has its origins in a drawing and modeling school from 1881 and the trade school for art glass blowing that emerged in 1905 . On May 23, 1936, she moved into the current building on Bahnhofstrasse. In the course of the centralization policy of the GDR, the art glass blower training was relocated to Weißwasser in Lausitz, one wing of the school building was used by a lower level (A-class) of the three-class "Lauscha-Ernstthal School Combine". During the time of reunification, the specialist glass academy , which was re-established on October 2, 1991, was in charge of the nationwide recognition of glassblowing training professions. In 1993, the Glas Lauscha vocational school became part of the Sonneberg State Vocational School . A comprehensive modernization and expansion of the school was ceremoniously completed on September 9, 2011.

In the run-up to Christmas, the glass-blowing town of Lauscha invites its visitors to a Christmas market . This ball market in Lauscha has now developed into a special market for Christmas tree decorations. On the first two Advent weekends , the whole city center will be converted into a pedestrian zone. In the early years around 15,000 people visited the Kugelmarkt annually, and since 2011 around 25,000 visitors have been counted. In 2014 and 2015 the MDR Jump Christmas Market Tour was a guest.

Lauscha glass art has been represented by a glass princess since 1992 . On the first Kugelmarkt weekend on November 29, 2015, Laura Leopold, last year's junior glass princess, took over the hollow-blown and mirrored glass scepter made by Dietbert Bätz in 2014 as the 20th Highness. For the 2016 Kugelmakt, Dietbert Bäz gave the glass princess two new sceptres, a more representative and a slightly smaller one for travel dates.

On the edge of the forest above the Köpplein , the Edelweißbrunnen with a resting place for hikers was built as early as 1932 . The destination was created as a joint effort by the Edelweiß Choral Society and the Lauscha Thuringian Forest Association . The fountain is again a meeting place for events after it was renovated and redesigned in 1991.

The town center was redesigned from September 27, 2010 to November 10, 2011 into a tourist destination. The area around the historic Hüttenplatz was extended by a multi-functional area that could be used as a parking area or for the ball market and for the weekly markets on the demolished area of ​​the former holiday home "Wilder Mann" and a small park, the "Ruppenecke", which was created in the 1970s the floor of the house of the glass harmonica maker Johann Georg Greiner jun., which was demolished in 1965 . (1744–1827) and Johann Karl Greiner Störmer (1778–1861), associated with a rare primeval sequoia .

dialect

Lauschner (local dialect)
speaker approx. 2,700
Linguistic
classification

In Lauscha, a very special East Franconian local dialect is spoken, the vocabulary of which is close to Itzgründischen , but which differs significantly from it due to its melodic tone and a slightly more modern local grammar and which is therefore outside the Itzgründ dialect area. The earlier suspected old Bohemian or Ilm Thuringian-Saxon roots of the Lauscha dialect have never been proven and also not comprehensible, instead Julius Kob (" Phonetik der Lauscha dialect ") has clearly established its East Franconian character. Since the first Lauscha residents, Hans Greiner and Christoph (Christoffel) Müller, had previously operated the glassworks in Langenbach in Schleusegrund and lived there with their families, an Eastern Henneberg idiom from the 14th to 16th centuries, similar to the local dialect of Sachsenbrunn , can be assumed as the basic substrate , which was influenced by the origin of the glassmakers from Swabian , Upper Franconian and Bohemian , perhaps also from the Netherlands . Also Huguenot influences are quite possible, as strong evidence to a following of local founder of Anabaptist movement interpret.

In its pure form, the Lauscha dialect has been handed down through the work of the unforgettable dialect poet "Blaachs Erwin" Erwin Müller-Blech . But even today people like to speak, write and sing in dialect - then more in a vernacular colloquial language that is somewhat easier to understand for High German listeners. Their unmistakable basic features also play a major role in everyday language. Due to the linguistic changes of the last hundred years, several original terms and field names have almost or completely disappeared from linguistic usage. In Ernstthal , in Neuhaus am Rennweg and at the other surviving daughter glassworks, the Thuringian dialects of the neighboring regions speak mainly of the pronunciation of "Lauschner" variants that are influenced and overheard . Until the beginning of the 20th century, a variant tinted from the Ore Mountains - South Meissen was spoken Steinacher Oberdorf spread.

The Lauscha dialect still shows language usage from the 18th century, which is explained by the remoteness of the mountain region. So is the greeting “ Servant! "An abbreviation of the" Devoted servant! "Used at the time, similar to the Latinized variant" Servus! ", Which is used in Bavarian .

The diphthonging common for Itzgründic , like the sounds and ou used in neighboring Steinach , do not occur in the Lauschner, instead the characteristic diphthong eu [aɥ], which resembles a Middle High German sound , which in Lauscha as in a Lower Franconian region near Würzburg like the Dutch ui , in Lauschner with a strong echo of the corresponding French approximant . A peculiarity is the “empty” end-l (here: l ), ie the sound is indicated with the root of the tongue shifted back, but the coronal tongue movement is not carried out. Example: (Owl = Aüe'l = ⁠ [a ɥ ɘ ]). Further features are the prominent [i] and the shift of the ch sound to the voiceless velar fricative [x] (ich = iich ). The Mainfränkisches originate typical vocal and Konsunantenverschiebungen how the generally soft single " [d] " (the valley = dos Doo'l ), the Frankish "rolled" [r] , the tendency to shift from egg to ä (two eggs = zwää Ääer ) and the use of both a particularly closed, o- loud [o] and a powerfully bright, open [a] sound instead of the high German a, but also grammatical peculiarities such as the use of the past participle instead of the infinitive: “Konnsta Still drilled? ”“ Well. ” -“ Can you go afterwards? ”“ No. ”. The short a-sound, on the other hand, is represented by the rounded, half-open back vowel [ɔ] : Nacht = Nochd . Interestingly, the a-sound also serves to differentiate the article das ( dos ) from the subordinate clause introduction “that ...” ( “dess ...” ).

Main Franconian are lively, ancient special words (potato = Ardöpf'l ) and vocabulary ( "Wenn wurer fei saa'lt?" "Ho henza, vuurdn, Nachtn, Nachtn on eenachtn aa." - "When was he there?" , yesterday and the day before yesterday. ”), the use of a locally modified modern past tense shows the proximity to the Central German dialects. Also from the remote location and the history of Lauscha explains the peculiarity of rejecting any kind of obedience to the authority from the outset in colloquial language through the comparatively frequent use of diminutive (final syllable -la) and with a lot of irony: "... Whoever has never felt the Lauscha ridicule, let him boast of a grace from God! ... "

The best-known language example for practicing: Es Heerla söcht zom Frääla: "Drontn im Hausern onterm Neern licht a Bendaschläche'l ". (Grandfather says to grandmother: "There's a blindworm below the floor in the hallway".)

The seclusion of the place and the guild-like isolation of the glassmaker's families led to an unusual accumulation of few family names. About 150 years ago there were 300 namesake "Müller", as many "Greiner" and over 200 "Bäz", "Böhm" and "Leipold". To distinguish it, an epithet was first added, and finally a nickname , the family relationships, professions, strange characteristics or other distinguishing features had to be used in order to ensure clear relationships in the place. The one who lived at the top of the mountain was therefore called “Bäz-Oberhäuser”, a “Greiner-Schwed” who had been in Sweden and an innkeeper “Böhm-Wirt”. A Prussian name reform gave the special case of Lauscha civil status. If people communicate in dialect, nicknames that have been inherited or newly acquired over generations are still preferred to official names.

The well-known novelist and narrator Wally Eichhorn-Nelson ( Rauh is the Kammweg , small town in the mountains ) lived and worked in the district of Ernstthal, who wrote about South Thuringian motifs in High German .

Culinary specialties

  • Lauschner Knölla (similar to Thuringian dumplings)
  • Radiokranz (a wreath cake made from dough with potatoes , flour and nuts or almonds)
  • Flockzamet (mashed potatoes)
  • Schnippe'lsopp (vegetable soup)
  • Mellichstöcksuloot (dandelion salad)
  • Dätscher (potato pancakes)
  • Gelüng (soup made from heart, liver, lungs, spleen, with Zamet)
  • Schwemmbrüh ' (mushroom soup)

(See also brochure: Lauter Lauschner Leibgerichte , publisher: Ev.-Luth. Kirchgemeinde Lauscha, 1996, with many recipes)

Since 2011, the traditional dandelion dishes of the Lauscha kitchen have been offered on a “Mellichstöckdooch” on the first Saturday in May in various restaurants in the city. In bad weather, over a hundred guests took part in the guided hikes of the second Mellichstöckdooch in 2012. Since the third edition, six historically interesting guided routes have led to the Hüttenplatz, each time hiked by more than three hundred hikers. At the fifth Mellichstöckdooch on May 2, 2015, the program was rounded off by a well-attended Mellichstöckdooch party with a children's festival, a regional natural products market and a presentation show for the production of dandelion dishes in the center, a “spring up” youth party in the Goetheschule, trips with the Motor-Draisine on the Max & Moritzbahn line from Gräfenthal to Ernstthal and back and horse-drawn carriage rides in and around Ernstthal enriched. The seventh edition took place on May 6, 2017.

Culture house

Music and customs

The Lauschaer Galopp , a composition by Harry Kosczol , is a widely known piece of music. Traditionally, there are several choirs and various music ensembles in Lauscha, which organized three-day music festivals in honor of Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert at Easter 1927 and 1928 . Today the choral society “Eintracht Lauscha e. V. ”and the choir“ Lauschenstein e. V. ”or the“ Lauschensteiner Jodler ”, which perform compositions by the long-time Lauscha ensemble leader and composer Hermann Jahn (1910–1983), the“ Lustigen Lauschner e. V. ", the Schlagerchor Lauscha, the school choir of the elementary school, the Lauscha town band, the hunting horn blowers Ernstthal, the entertainment musician" Fritz from Lauscha "Fritz Gramß, producer and music teacher, Willi" Pe "Petzold and other music lovers. From 1992 to 1997 the city of Lauscha organized the music competition for children and young people, "The Glass Harp", which has been run by the Sonneberg district music school since 1998.

In the rock and pop music sector, the rock band Bromm Oss, founded in 1980, paved the way for dialect rock with their own compositions . The band HOK ( hääß oddr koo'lt ) is currently writing its own songs in the Lauscha dialect. A well-known cover rock band from Lauscha are the “Rambling Stamps”, dance music is played by the “Golden Sixties Memory Band” around Willy Knoth and “Tommy's Disco”. With alternative songwriters and punk bands such as Gülleschiss, Löm, Schgrampf or Querschläger, Lauscha has achieved notoriety on the left. Since October 10, 2003, the Lauscha Music Night has been bringing together different styles of music every year in the restaurants and bars in Lauscha and Ernstthal.

Gollo-Musik eV acts as the organizer of music and cultural events. The cultural center in the former “Hotel Böhm” from 1911 on Hüttenplatz is regularly used for performances and other events . Nationally known events are the Edelweißbrunnenfest of the Thuringian Forest Association, which takes place every year at the beginning of August, and the Köpplein fair ( Koppna Kerwa ) that follows on the fairground on the Köpplein, organized by the Köpplein e. V., in which a traditional Lauscha competition, the Beerkuchenessen , is held. The Schützengesellschaft Obermühle e. V. organizes a shooting festival and a city championship for the “mayor's challenge cup”. In addition, the colorful music festival "Open Air, please very much" has been taking place at the gravel plant since 2013 and the "foam party" has been taking place on the Tierberg sports field since 2014.

Sports

Ski jumping facility in the Marktiegel

In addition to football ( FSV 07 Lauscha with the sports facility on the Tierberg and SV Rennsteig Ernstthal), winter sports play a central role in Lauscha. The winter sports club 08 Lauscha eV prepares trails around the city every ski season . The most striking sports facility is the Marktiegelschanze in Henriettenthal, located in the middle of town. The ski jump was inaugurated on December 28, 1911, from 1953 to 1959 it was expanded into a ski jumping facility and modernized several times until today. The former national trainer Reinhard Heß , the vice world champion in ski flying Axel Zitzmann and the German champion and two-time World Cup winner André Kiesewetter learned ski jumping here, national team and board member Danny Queck and team junior world champion Pauline Heßler represent today's generation of athletes and the Thuringia and nationwide successful offspring. Competitions with international participation take place here regularly. Ski jumping trainer and 6-time senior world champion in ski jumping Jens Greiner-Hiero has been leading the training of young jumpers and combiners since 1994. Many athletes from Lauscha found their way to the Oberhof sports high school and drew national and international attention to themselves and Lauscha. "Ski jumping for everyone" has been a popular attraction for guests and those interested since 2002 and promotes young skiers in Lauscha.

The Lauscha chess players are traditionally successful too. After the Katzhütte-Lauscha syndicate was dissolved, they have been playing for SV Motor Katzhütte-Oelze since the 2007/08 season.

Club life

In addition to the music and sports clubs listed above, other clubs are active in the city: the fishing and casting sports club, the Arbeiterwohlfahrt , local groups Lauscha and Ernstthal, the Lauscha mountain rescue service , the Lauscha fire brigade association. V. and the fire brigade association Ernstthal e. V., the Friends of the Museum of Glass Art, the horticultural association "Kleiner Tierberg" e. V., the poultry breeders' association, the parish council of the Evangelical Lutheran parish, the Heimat- und Geschichtsverein Lauscha e. V., the bowling club KSV Rennsteig Ernstthal, the Lauschaer Carneval Verein e. V., the Schaumtanzunion eV, the Mondstürerverein Ernstthal e. V., the Naturschutzbund Deutschland OG Lauscha, the breed rabbit breeders association e. V., the Rennsteig Association, the school promotion and tradition association. the swimming pool association and the association for the care of German monuments e. V.

Economy and Infrastructure

Glass industry

Glass blowing in front of the lamp

Lauscha is shaped by the glass industry. The centerpiece of this is the Lauscha Color Glassworks. The further processing of the glass takes place in the local home industry. The city is known worldwide for the Christmas tree decorations produced there. The collective brand Lauschaer Glaskunst is protected by the German Patent and Trademark Office , Jena Office . The owner of the collective brand is the Chamber of Crafts of South Thuringia in Suhl , the management is carried out by the brand board. It guarantees traditional quality goods from glassblowers and glass designers from Lauscha and the surrounding area.

The production of micro-glass fibers with a diameter of 6.0-0.2 µm by Lauscha Fiber International GmbH is also noteworthy .

tourism

The tourism is one of the main sources of income. As early as 1918, skiing in Lauscha became a tourist event in the winter months. Up to 3,000 skiers came to town by train every winter weekend. Today the cross-country trails around Lauscha and Ernstthal , a total of around 60 km of ski hiking trails, are connected to the long-distance routes “Coburger Skiweg”, “Nürnberger Skiweg”, “Sonneberger Skiweg” and “Rennsteigskiweg”. For alpine winter sports tourists there is the ski paradise Ernstthal on Pappenheimer Berg with three slopes between 834.5  m above sea level. NN and 740 m above sea level NN, a ski lift , a ski rental station, the Bratwurst trail on the plateau and a 2 km long natural toboggan run to Lauscha, which is prepared when there is enough snow. The Silbersattel ski arena in Steinach is also easily accessible.

Outside the ski season, the Rennsteig , the “Glas & Schiefer-Wanderweg”, “Glashütten-Rundweg”, “Brunnenroute”, “6-Kuppensteig” and “Rund um Lauscha” and “Rund um den Lauschenstein” hiking trails invite you to explore and active recreation. The summer toboggan run in Ernstthal and the heated adventure pool in Steinachgrund complete the offer. Lauscha is a state-approved resort . The region around the Thuringian Slate Mountains offers many excursion destinations.

In 2013, Lauscha was the first city in the Sonneberg district and the Free State of Thuringia to join the Franconian Tourism Association and the Coburger Land and Upper Main Valley Tourism Association.

traffic

Lauscha train station

Lauscha lies on the national road L 1145, outgoing from the Federal Highway 281 by Neuhaus am Rennweg to Steinach direction Sonnenberg. About the connection points 5 ice rink -Nord on the B 281 and 8 Neustadt in Coburg at the B 4 which is A 73 to achieve.

The city has a train station and a stop on the Coburg – Ernstthal railway line on Rennsteig . The station Lauscha (Thür) in 1886 as the end point of the historically Steinach Valley Railway built said section from Sonneberg. The current station building was built between 1912 and 1914 as part of the closing of the gap in the railway line to Wallendorf . Lauscha station is a switchback station - trains can only leave the station area in a southerly direction to both destinations. After almost completely circling the Teufelsholz mountain over the station viaduct , through the Lauschenstein tunnel and over the Nasse Telle viaduct , first with a view of the Steinach valley, then the Lauschatal valley, you will reach the Oberlauscha stop on the way to Ernstthal. The railway line from the entrance to Unterlauscha, where there was a stop on the retaining wall that was abandoned in 1920, to the Lauschenstein tunnel and the entire station area are under monument protection.

Fire and rescue services

There is a volunteer fire brigade in the city of Lauscha , with two separate emergency departments, Ernstthal and Lauscha. Both departments currently consist of approx. 25 emergency services. A LF 16/12 is stationed in Ernstthal, which the city procured in 2019, completely refurbished.

An LF 16-TS, a TLF 16/24 based on Unimog and an MZF on a VW Crafter are stationed at the Lauscha site. The MZF was put into service by the city administration in 2019. In addition, a command vehicle and the CBRN reconnaissance vehicle for the Sonneberg district are stationed at the Lauscha site. A drone with a thermal imaging camera and a mobile power generator were also housed in Lauscha from the Sonneberg district.

There is a youth fire brigade with around 10 young people. There is a fire brigade association at both locations, each of which supports its operational departments.

In the event of major damage, the Lauscha fire brigade always moves out together with the local mountain rescue service in Lauscha. This supports the medical and logistical protection of deployment sites and can take on numerous other tasks.

The number of missions currently amounts to around 50 missions per year.

education

The educational landscape of the city is determined by decreasing numbers of children and pupils. At the height of its development there were two kindergartens in Lauscha and from 1962 to 1985 a three-class school combination Lauscha-Ernstthal with around 900 pupils, plus classes from the vocational school that used the school buildings in Lauscha and Ernstthal. In 1985 the Ernstthal students were trained in Neuhaus am Rennweg. In 2003 the Lauscha regular school was closed. Today there is the “Hüttengeister” day-care center in Oberlauscha, the elementary school in the Kirchwegschule and the glass vocational school.

school-building Construction year previous use Todays use photo
Old school, Oberlandstrasse 10 1768, rebuilt 1849–1851 Elementary school , Commercial College, Vocational School , 1903-2013 Museum of Glass Art Lauscha Local history and history association Lauscha e. V. Lauscha Glass Art Museum.jpg
New school, Bahnhofstrasse 12 1868 Elementary school town hall Lauscha Town Hall.jpg
Goethe School (until 1949 Bahnhofsschule), Bahnhofstrasse 29 1897 Elementary school, 1919 middle school , 1923 secondary school , 1939 high school , 1957 middle school , 1959 polytechnic high school (upper level), 1991 regular school Culture collective Goetheschule Lauscha Lauscha-Bahnhofstr29.jpg
Ernstthal School, Schulstrasse 18 1832, rebuilt 1904–1905 Elementary school, 1962 POS lower level, 1985 station for young naturalists and technicians Social therapeutic center “Sturmheide” of the context Ilmenau, non-profit society for psychosocial services mbH School Ernstthal am Rennsteig.JPG
Kirchwegschule, Kirchstrasse 45 1906 Elementary school, 1962 POS lower and partially upper school primary school Lauscha-Kirchstr45.jpg
Vocational school, Bahnhofstrasse 56 1936, remodeled in 2011 Vocational school, 1962 POS lower level and vocational school classes Vocational school glass Lauscha-Bahnhofstr56.jpg

Personalities

Ludwig Müller-Uri

Honorary citizen

  • Reinhard Heß , ski jumper and head coach of the German national ski jumping team (born June 13, 1945 in Lauscha, † December 24, 2007 in Bad Berka )
  • Gerhard Bürger, former managing director of Farbglashütte and Lauscha Fiber International GmbH
  • Eberhard Robke, managing partner of Glaswerk Ernstthal GmbH

sons and daughters of the town

Other personalities

  • Hans Greiner (* around 1550 in Langenbach; † 1609 in Lauscha), glassmaker, smelter and local founder
  • Christoph (Christoffel) Müller (* around 1545 probably in Bischofsgrün ; † 1628 in Lauscha), glassmaker, smelter and founder of the town
  • Georg Friedrich Knye (born April 9, 1674 in Kreibitz near Kamnitz , † April 28, 1764 in Lauscha), court glass cutter of the Princely Schwarzburg
  • Rudolf Hoffmann (born April 12, 1921 in Siliştea / Bukowina; † June 29, 2011 in Lauscha), long-time director of the Museum for Glass Art Lauscha
  • Günter Dührkop (born July 26, 1925 in Coburg , † 2002 in Lauscha), painter
  • Heinz Richard Blümlein (born January 8, 1927), Evangelical Lutheran pastor
  • Götz Bickelhaupt (born June 9, 1928, † November 30, 1987), Evangelical Lutheran pastor and publicist
  • Jochen Greiner-Well (born August 12, 1956 in Gräfenthal ; † September 24, 2013), Member of the Thuringian State Parliament ( SPD )
  • Axel Zitzmann (born February 21, 1959 in Graefenthal), former ski jumper
  • André Kiesewetter (born August 20, 1969 in Neuhaus am Rennweg ), former ski jumper
  • Jens Greiner-Hiero (born December 29, 1972 in Neuhaus am Rennweg ), A-ski jumping trainer, 6-time senior world champion in ski jumping, former ski jumper, city councilor
  • Nicki Neubauer (born August 23, 1977 in Neuhaus am Rennweg), competitive athlete, professional volleyball and Swiss volleyball coach
  • Danny Queck (born September 17, 1989 in Neuhaus am Rennweg), former ski jumper
  • Maximilian Otto (born October 25, 1991 in Neuhaus am Rennweg), former Nordic combined athlete and skeleton player
  • Michael Schuller (born June 4, 1993 in Neuhaus am Rennweg), former Nordic combined athlete
  • Pauline Heßler (born September 13, 1998 in Neuhaus am Rennweg), ski jumper

(From 1952, the district hospital of the Neuhaus am Rennweg district , whose birth station was only in Gräfenthal and has been located in Neuhaus am Rennweg since 1969 , was increasingly given as the place of birth.)

literature

  • City of Lauscha (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the award of city rights. Friebel-Druck, Saalfeld 1957.
  • Albert Böhm: Lauschaer Leut - characters and names from the Thuringian Forest. Museum for Glass Art Lauscha, Bad Blankenburg 1977.
  • City of Lauscha (Hrsg.): Historischer Bilderbogen - A foray through the history of Lauscha and Ernstthal. Geiger-Verlag, Horb am Neckar 2008, ISBN 978-3-86595-255-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Population of the municipalities from the Thuringian State Office for Statistics  ( help on this ).
  2. Annegrete Janda: The Thuringian Glass Cut in the 17th and 18th Century , Diss., University of Leipzig, 1962
  3. ^ Konrad Dorst in: Lauschaer Zeitung. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, June 8, 2012, p. 18 , accessed on June 8, 2012 .
  4. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, December 9, 2016, p. 10 , accessed December 9, 2016 .
  5. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, August 8, 2008, pp. 13-14 , accessed April 15, 2011 .
  6. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, October 7, 2011, p. 21 , accessed October 10, 2011 .
  7. ^ Konrad Dorst in: Lauschaer Zeitung. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, May 11, 2012, pp. 17 - 18 , accessed on May 11, 2012 .
  8. ^ Johann Friedrich Kratzsch: The latest and most thorough alphabetical lexicon of all localities in the German federal states , Eduard Zimmermann Verlag, Naumburg 1843, p. 675
  9. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, July 8, 2011, p. 16 , accessed on July 10, 2011 .
  10. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, November 5, 2010, p. 16 , accessed April 15, 2011 .
  11. Christian Friedrich Keßler von Sprengseysen: Topography of the Herzoglich-Sachsen-Koburg-Meiningischen Antheils at the Herzogthum Koburg together with a geographical map of this country and some important never-before-printed documents between Saxony and Bamberg from 1471, 1601 and 1608 , self-published, Sonneberg 1781, P. 136 ff.
  12. Prof. G. Brückner: Landeskunde des Herzogthums Meinigen , Volume 2: Die Topographie des Landes , Verlag Brückner and Renner, Meinigen 1853, p. 472 ff.
  13. ^ Author collective: Meyers Konversationslexikon , fourth edition, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig and Vienna 1885–1895, p. 565, in: Retrobibliothek
  14. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, November 7, 2014, pp. 11 - 12 , accessed on November 8, 2014 .
  15. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, October 7, 2014, p. 10 , accessed on October 8, 2016 .
  16. Barbara Bock in: Lauschaer Zeitung. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, June 8, 2012, pp. 8 - 11 , accessed on June 8, 2012 .
  17. ^ Konrad Dorst in: Lauschaer Zeitung. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, June 8, 2011, pp. 18 - 19 , accessed on June 13, 2011 .
  18. ^ Rudolf Hoffmann: On the social situation of the working people in the Lauscha glass industry under the conditions of capitalist production conditions , Museum für Glaskunst Lauscha, 1977
  19. Thuringian Association of the Persecuted of the Nazi Regime - Association of Antifascists and Study Group of German Resistance 1933–1945 (Ed.): Heimatgeschichtlicher Wegweiser to places of resistance and persecution 1933–1945 , series: Heimatgeschichtliche Wegweiser Volume 8 Thüringen, Erfurt 2003, p. 284 , ISBN 3-88864-343-0
  20. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, November 7, 2014, pp. 11 - 12 , accessed on November 8, 2014 .
  21. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, December 5, 2014, p. 11 , accessed on December 5, 2014 .
  22. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, October 13, 2006, p. 6 , accessed December 10, 2011 .
  23. Ministry of Building and Transport Thuringia (Ed.): State Development Plan 2004 (PDF; 2.8 MB)
  24. Municipal working group of the cities of Neuhaus am Rennweg, Lauscha and Steinach: press release (PDF; 575 kB)
  25. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, May 13, 2016, p. 1 , accessed on June 3, 2016 .
  26. mdr.de: Lauscha and Neuhaus cancel voluntary engagement, now forced merger threatens MDR.DE . ( mdr.de [accessed on July 20, 2017]).
  27. Local elections in Thuringia - election results
  28. Local elections in Thuringia - election results 2014
  29. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, December 9, 2011, p. 1 , accessed December 10, 2011 .
  30. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, July 8, 2011, pp. 1 - 2 , accessed on July 10, 2011 .
  31. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, March 9, 2012, pp. 1 - 2 , accessed on March 9, 2012 .
  32. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, March 8, 2013, pp. 1 - 2 , accessed on March 9, 2013 .
  33. ^ Press release from the City of Lauscha, March 27, 2012
  34. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, May 8, 2015, p. 1 , accessed on May 13, 2015 .
  35. City of Lauscha: Budget Security Concept 2015 of the City of Lauscha from September 28, 2015
  36. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, September 11, 2015, pp. 1 - 2 , accessed on September 14, 2015 .
  37. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, October 9, 2015, p. 1 , accessed October 10, 2015 .
  38. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, April 8, 2016, p. 1 , accessed on April 8, 2016 .
  39. City of Lauscha: Basics of visual communication in Lauscha , September 30, 2008 (PDF; 1 MB)
  40. Lauscha newspaper. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, January 20, 2012, pp. 1 - 2 , accessed on January 20, 2012 .
  41. in Südthüringen.de: Highnesses, Hüttengeister and especially glass from December 1, 2014
  42. Barbara Bock: The edelweiss fountain on the stony hill in Lauscha. In: Hörselbergbote. Issue 50.Wutha-Farnroda 2002, p. 14.
  43. Klaus Apel: Lauscha, Neuhaus a. Rwg., Steinach . In: Tourist-Wanderheft . VEB Tourist Verlag, Leipzig 1980, p. 18 .
  44. City of Lauscha, Lauschaer Tourismus-Stammtisch: Flyer zum Mellichstöckdooch 2012 , March 29, 2012 ( Memento of the original from April 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 122 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lauscha.de
  45. Tobias Rosenbaum: Hike to Mellichstöckdooch , May 6, 2012 ( Memento of the original from April 13, 2014 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.herrnhaus.de
  46. Music school of the district of Sonneberg: Die Gläserne Harfe - Announcement 2012  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.musikschule-sonneberg.de  
  47. Klaus Apel: Lauscha, Neuhaus a. Rwg., Steinach . In: Tourist-Wanderheft . VEB Tourist Verlag, Leipzig 1980, p. 20 .
  48. Free word: Lauscha is pushing tourism south [1]
  49. Heimat- und Geschichtsverein in: Lauschaer Zeitung. (PDF file: 0.2 MB) City of Lauscha, May 11, 2012, pp. 14-15 , accessed on May 11, 2012 .

Web links

Commons : Lauscha  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikivoyage: Lauscha  - travel guide