Loh- and Haderwald

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The forest areas southeast of Oelsnitz in the natural area of the Erzgebirge basin are referred to as Loh- and Haderwald . These used to be more extensive and ranged from Höhlholz and Struth in the north to church wood in the south. These ancient forest names indicate swampy and controversial small patches of forest.

To the northwest, the forests are bounded by the Höhlbach, which fed many ponds - originally over 30 - with its water. We find their names on old maps: the Loh, Schenken and Hofeteiche as well as the Sidonia pond named after a Schönburg princess. Some of the water-filled depressions also come from the clay building that was used to make bricks. In the southwest the Lohwald ends at the Oberwürschnitzer Sandberg. The Haderwald takes its name from the town of Hadern, which was destroyed in the Hussite War in the 14th century.

Loh- and Haderwald are part of the small landscape of the Lugau mountain range, which is only 1–2 km wide, but more than 11 km long and remarkably flat, undulating strip of land that forms the southern edge of the Ore Mountains basin between Steegenwiesen and Niederzschocken . In the eastern part of the area, dense, waterlogged, obstructive earth layers, several starting points for brickworks, cover the red-lying area. Beyond the Mulde - Chemnitz water divide with the Sahrberg (487.8 m above sea level ), the Lugau mountain range drops over the broad basin of the Thierfelder Bach to the gentle meadow basin east of Niederzschocken .

Despite the favorable relief, the Lugau mountain edge shows hardly any old settlement approaches . The wet and cold soils were characterized by a large proportion of grassland, residual forests and a high population of ponds. In the previous century Schumann wrote the following about this area:

“Here, between Oelsnitz , Oberlugau and Würschnitz, a high-lying, almost flat area spreads out, which only depends to the northeast; Acid grassland, a multitude of ponds, which are not very suitable for use, and untidy forests cover them and make them one of the most melancholy and unpleasant in the Ore Mountains ... ”.

Only with the coal mining did the settlement spread to this area. In recent years, after extensive renovation work, the grassland and the pond stock have been reduced, thus further changing the landscape.

Loh- and Haderwald are predominantly pure coniferous forests, which only experience a bit of variety from deciduous trees that have collected themselves. While the Haderwald is dominated by the spruce , the Lohwald is also interspersed with pines and larches . Here we find 2 larger forest nurseries near the dry Sandberg, which is occupied by gardens and residential properties, the western edge of which has a birch and pine population.

Immediately after the discovery of hard coal , several mining attempts were made in the Lohwald, but they were unsuccessful. The two small cattle path shafts only reached depths of 11 and 36 m in 1844/46. In 1924, the coal plant Gottes Segen am Lohwald had a so-called air shaft sunk for better ventilation of the distant mine workings, the Heinrich-Schacht, which after 1945 was named in honor of a worker functionary Hermann-Blasche-Schacht. The club's luck pit is located in the Haderwald, but has been used exclusively for water supply for decades. Today, the Haderwald in the area of ​​the Neuwürschnitz Forest Baths has a recreational character.

On the southern border of the Oelsnitzer Stadtflur, the Kirchenwald joins the Haderwald. It was called Holy Wood as early as 1591 and has been owned by the Oelsnitz parish ever since . Between Loh- and Haderwald, after the First World War, the Deutschlandschacht factory settlement, Waldesruh (mockingly also Negerdorf) belonging to the city of Oelsnitz , was expanded after 1950 to include houses belonging to the workers' housing association. In the vicinity of the former Waldesruh inn on Pflockenstraße, subsidence caused the cave creek to flow in a new direction. Not far from there, after the land reform, some new farms (⇒ new farmers) were built on Pflockenstrasse.

In addition to the only developed road, Neuwieser Straße, several paths lead from Oelsnitz to the ridge with Pflockenstraße. One of them is the Hartensteiner Frönerweg, which is reminiscent of feudal exploitation. It begins at the Mitteloelsnitz stop, delimits the dump site of the Albert-Funk-Schacht, rises to the height of the Lautberg and reaches the old street of Pflockenstraße on the Dürren Leethenberg at Kreuzhübel.