Wolkenburger Revier
| Wolkenburg mining area | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| General information about the mine | |||
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| Information about the mining company | |||
| Operating company | AG Altbergbau und Geologie Westsachsen eV | ||
| Start of operation | before 1300 | ||
| End of operation | after 1830, 1944 used as LSR | ||
| Successor use | Visitor mines: since 1982 God's blessing Erbstolln at Niederwinkel, since 1994 St. Anna treasure trove in Wolkenburg | ||
| Funded raw materials | |||
| Degradation of | Copper, lead, silver, gold soaps | ||
| Geographical location | |||
| Coordinates | 50 ° 53 '54.7 " N , 12 ° 39' 47.9" E | ||
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| Location | Wolkenburg-Kaufungen | ||
| local community | Limbach-Oberfrohna | ||
| country | Free State of Saxony | ||
| Country | Germany | ||
Wolkenburger Revier is a comprehensive generic term for a historical ore mining area in West Saxony. It does not designate an independent mining district, such as the Annaberger Revier or the Schneeberger Revier. It is located on the Zwickauer Mulde between the districts of the town of Limbach-Oberfrohna Herrnsdorf in the north, Uhlsdorf in the southeast and the Niederwinkel district of the town of Waldenburg in the southwest. In the center there was already a mining settlement in the Middle Ages, which is mentioned as "Ullrichsberg" in several documents from the 14th century. This is where today's colloquial term "Ullersberg" of the hill on the east bank of the Zwickauer Mulde goes back.
Geologically, the Wolkenburger Revier is located at the southwest tip of the Saxon Granulite Mountains and therefore does not belong to the Ore Mountains , from which it is separated by the Ore Mountains Basin. The “Herrnsdorfer Joch” is the most south-westerly point where the granulite is emerging. Lead ores containing copper and silver were mined.
The eponymous castle Wolkenburg was built in the second half of the 12th century on a mountain spur on the west bank of the Zwickauer Mulde. From the 12th to the middle of the 14th century, Wolkenburg belonged to the Colditz rule in the Pleißenland and was thus outside the Wettin march of Meißen. It was not until 1351 that the Margraves of Meißen secured the power of disposal over the minting rights to the Wolkenburg mining in connection with the collapse of the Pleißenland.
Mining flourished again in the 16th century and was administered by the Marienberg Mining Authority at that time. At least 26 names of the pits have survived from this operating phase, but not a single map of the location of these pits has survived to this day. With numerous interruptions after the Thirty Years War, mining continued until the beginning of the 19th century.
geology
The granulite massif occupies an approximately 50 km long and up to 30 km wide, elliptically shaped area, which is roughly outlined by the cities of Hohenstein-Ernstthal, Waldenburg, Penig, Rochlitz, Döbeln, Roßwein, Nossen and Frankenberg. In the peripheral areas, especially in the southwest part of the granulite massif near Hohenstein-Ernstthal, there are granulites and gneisses as well as metabasites (serpentinites, gabbros, amphibolites).
The granulite massif was lifted up during the Variscan mountain formation. At several points in the granulite area, intrusions of various granites and pegmatitic rock dikes developed. A few kilometers to the northeast, the Rochlitzer Berg today forms a striking elevation and a sign of post-Variscan magmatism.
At the same time, erosion and sedimentation began in the basins in between. Except for a residual clod in the area of the Ullersberg, the overburden of the granulite in the southwest was completely removed. All that was left was a “slate mantle” of younger rocks, which surrounds it like a ring. Since the quartz-rich rocks of the slate mantle of the edge zone weather more heavily than the feldspar-containing granulite of the inner surface, it rises like a ring wall around the granulite area. This slate wall becomes clear in the southwest in a ridge that stretches from Oberrabenstein to Langenberg near Hohenstein-Ernstthal.
The granulite area, on the other hand, is relatively flat, was run over by the Elster Cold Age glaciation in the Pleistocene and is broken up today by rivers and larger streams. While in Waldenburg the Zwickauer Mulde still flows through a wide flood plain, the wild and romantic valley of the central Mulden area begins at Niederwinkel shortly before Wolkenburg, which extends approximately to Rochlitz from southwest to northeast through the granulite massif.
During the last phase of the Variscan tectogenesis (Saalic phase) there were further disturbances. In the rock of the granulite and especially its slate mantle, crevices formed in which sulphidic ores and their accompanying minerals (gangue) settled. There were essentially two types of lead-zinc-silver deposits in Wolkenburg:
- the barytic lead ore formation (fba) with low-silver, antimony-rich pale ore (tetrahedral) and the veins barite (barite), quartz and chert, brown spar (ankerite) and calcite (calcite), as well
- the gritty, dazzling formation (kb) with copper pyrites (chalcopyrite), galena (galena), arsenic pebbles (arsenopyrite), pyrites (pyrite, marcasite) and the quartz and barite veins
Copper pyrites, pale ore and galena were the main ore minerals. However, the paragenesis does not fully correspond to the kb formation typical of the standing corridors in Freiberg. A special feature in Wolkenburg is the complete absence of fluorite, zinc blende (sphalerite) also does not occur here. As far as can still be traced today on the basis of a few finds on the remains of heaps and during the overhaul, the gangue material was mainly formed in a brecciated manner with coarse mixtures of ore minerals. The mineralization can only be seen today on the basis of secondary minerals such as malachite, azurite (copper carbonate) and cerussite (lead carbonate), rarely pyromorphite (lead phosphate). Mineral discoveries are no longer possible today.
Most of the veins were of limited extent and varied strike. In the Herrnsdorf sub-area they form a network of late and morning corridors, in Niederwinkel there are also standing corridors. The dip is sometimes very shallow (40 °) and mostly oriented in a westerly direction. The course can mostly be traced back to lateral tensions in the border area of the granulite, staggered fractures and slippage of clods of the slate mantle when the granulite is lifted.
Also on the southern edge of the granulite mountains near Hohenstein-Ernstthal , at least 1500 standing tunnels were mined for arsenic gravel and silver-containing pale ores (St. Lampertus Fundgrube, Wille Gottes Fundgrube). There was also gold in these corridors, which was probably also extracted as soap gold in the “Goldbach”.
Gold soaps were also awarded in the Herrnsdorfer Bach in the 16th century.
The metabasites weather with the formation of nickel-containing silicates (garnierite, etc.), were mined from the 1960s to 1990 in the opencast mine near Callenberg and smelted in St. Egidien. With the discovery of the lead chromate crocoite in the nickel ore mines, interest in medieval silver mining was revived.
history
The region on the Zwickauer Mulde belongs to the old settlements north of the “Miriquidi”. Already in the Slavic period (between 600 and 900 AD) districts were formed here, including in Zwickau and between Colditz and Rochlitz on the Zwickauer Mulde.
The Saxon emperors and margraves as their most important feudal bearers began to settle farmers in the Eastern Marches after the turn of the millennium. In addition to the margraviate and diocese of Meissen on the Upper Elbe, Otto I founded new administrative centers on the eastern border of Thuringia in 968 AD with the dioceses of Zeitz and Merseburg. In this first phase, Wiprecht von Groitzsch, the elder (around 1050 to 1124), to whom, among other things, the founding of Leisnig is attributed, is worth highlighting .
In the 12th century, clearing and settlement were again forced. This was ensured on the one hand by the margraves and on the other hand by the Hohenstaufen emperors, especially Friedrich Barbarossa . From 1150 Friedrich tried to create an imperial territory as the power base of an imperial house independent of the electoral monarchy in the Eastern Marches in Central Germany between the Palatinate and imperial cities of Nuremberg and Eger in the south, Goslar and Erfurt in the west, Tilleda and Magdeburg in the north. Several regions (Regnitzland, Egerland, Vogtland) emerged, some of which are still territorial or colloquial today, such as the Vogtland. The establishment of the city of Chemnitz as a monastery (1136) also goes back to this time.
For the administration of the numerous smaller lordships of the Pleißenland , which was formed at that time , Friedrich primarily appointed ministerials and members of the lower nobility, who thereby moved up in their position to directly imperial feudal bearers. The administrative center of the Pleißenland was Altenburg , where the Heinrichingers, as district judges, assumed a position comparable to the bailiffs of Plauen. Wolkenburg was one of these lords of the Pleißenland and belonged to a branch line of those of Colditz. In addition to the burgraves of Colditz and Leisnig, the Pleißenland included the regions between Striegis and Zschopau in the east (Sachsenburg, Schellenberg, Wolkenstein, Scharfenstein, Greifenstein) and east of the Zwickauer Mulde up to the border with Bohemia (Glauchau, Stollberg, Wildenfels, Hartenstein, Schlettau) . The Burggrafschaft Rochlitz had already come to the Wettins in 1143.
The situation was fundamentally changed when, in 1348, Charles IV of the House of Luxemburg became King of Bohemia and Emperor of the German Empire. With the Golden Bull, he reorganized the electoral monarchy and limited the number of those eligible to vote to seven electors. The creation of an imperial power could therefore be concentrated on strengthening one's own domestic power and the Pleißenland became “superfluous”. As a result of feuds, pledges and by means of open military conquest, the Wettins were able to bring a large part of the Pleißenland under their suzerainty by the end of the 14th century.
Charles IV, however, confirmed the fiefdoms of several lords, which were thereby withdrawn from the Bohemian fiefdoms and the Wettins' access (Glauchau, Lichtenstein). He also confirmed to the last of the Heinrichinger (Altenburg) that his daughter was mortgaged after her marriage to Otto von Leisnig, but at the same time transferred the Pleißenland to the House of Wettin.
In addition to the Reussians in East Thuringia, only the princely line of the Schönburgers succeeded in maintaining their imperial position - almost on a par with the Saxon electors - well beyond the Middle Ages (until the main trial of 1740).
Wolkenburg also came under Wettin sovereignty. So it is not surprising that the first documentary mention of mining in this region occurs precisely at this time (January 21, 1351).
Mining history
Freiberg was not the only early mining town in Saxony. In Dippoldiswalde, mining began, archaeologically documented, at least around the same time. Friedrich Barbarossa and his feudal bearers certainly also paid attention to ore deposits in the newly cleared lands. However, there is no documentary evidence of the beginning of mining in Wolkenburg and so far hardly any archaeological evidence.
P. Albinus (1589) writes in his Meißnische Land- und Bergchronik that mining began on the Vlrichsberg near Pehnigk in 1345. The mining archaeological excavations carried out on the Ullersberg in June 1989 by the Mittweida Regional Office for Monument Preservation suggest that a miners' settlement was already established in the second half of the 13th century. Under the foundation of the castle, whose existence can be proven for the period from 1300 to around 1355 according to current knowledge, a day shaft was found during the excavations, which must clearly be assigned to the early mining of the 13th century.
The first heyday of mining in Wolkenburg came to an end from the middle of the 14th century. The miners moved to other areas. Probably from 1360 the mountain town lay on the Ullrichsberg desolate.
In a document from 1390, the Margraves of Meißen leased the Freiberg mint master Nickel von Meideburg the mine to Ulrichsberg near Wolkenburg and all the mines that are half a mile around it, as well as the mine to Bleiberg near Frankenberg for an annual pension of 1200 shock groschen. However, the planned introduction of water arts in the Wolkenburg mining industry did not take place because the production costs were still too high. Nickel von Meideburg was then actively involved in the Harz mining industry from 1391 to 1395.
A second period of prosperity did not begin until the end of the 15th or the beginning of the 16th century. On the one hand, the decisive factor was the capital that had accumulated in the hands of the city's citizens and was looking for investment opportunities. On the other hand, the renaissance brought a new, scientific interest in nature to Germany from northern Italy. For example only, were Ulrich Rülein of Calw or Georgius Agricola named as best known authors on mining from this period. The introduction of the wet stamping works took place (in Wolkenburg by S. von Maltitz in 1519). Last but not least, a new upswing began in the Upper Ore Mountains region through the discovery of new silver ore deposits in Schneeberg (1470), Annaberg (1496), Marienberg (1519), Joachimsthal (1525) or Scheibenberg (1530).
At the beginning of the 16th century, the old mining areas near Wolkenburg experienced a revival. In 1519 the landlord of Kaufungen, Hans von Maltitz, requested freedom for his mines near Kaufungen am Ulrichsberg. While there was a decline in silver mining in other mining centers in the second half of the 16th century after the mining of the near-day rich ores, there is evidence that four copper mines were in continuous operation in Wolkenburg from 1550 to 1592. These mining companies could not compete with silver imports from the Spanish colonies. Many trades lacked the capital, especially for the cost-intensive water retention systems for operating the civil engineering, as can be seen from the applications of the trades from 1592.
A renewed decline in mining was noted in the first half of the 17th century during the course of the Thirty Years' War. There is evidence that from 1607 to 1608 some of the old pits in Wolkenburg were still in operation, but they were completely closed by 1616. After the efforts of the judge from Wolkenburg, Andreas Cloß, Georg Heinrichs von Ende zu Wolkenburg and Hans Lösers zu Seelitz (near Rochlitz), it was possible in 1621 to open up some of the pits in the Wolkenburg district and to buy back from Ende the smelter from Haubold, which had been converted into a hammer forge . The "Berg- und Zechenhaus" is mentioned for the first time in 1613 in the sales deeds. Unfortunately, in 1625 the pits fell again into the mountain-free area.
In 1713 Christian Weinhold assumed an old colliery in Herrnsdorf under the new name “St. Anna treasure trove. “The first ore deliveries followed just a year later. But two years later the pit fell into the open again. From 1720 to 1724 the pits near Herrnsdorf were opened under sergeant Johann Daniel Meyer, who, together with colonel-sergeant Detlef Wilhelm v. Wahmer, especially in Hohenstein, but also in Glauchau and Wolkenburg, cleaned up old mines. In 1724, however, the guard moved to Dresden and mining at Wolkenburg ceased again, until finally, for a few years from 1730–1733, Chemnitz citizens continued the mining operations under shift supervisor Sonntag from Penig. In the absence of a processing plant and the associated costs, the mining operations then ceased until 1737, until the miner Raymund Gottlob Kunze "... got the old pits at Wolkenburg busy again."
A year later, Steiger Kunze began to reopen the “Blessing God's Treasure Trove” at Niederwinkel. The excavation of a new, ultimately 226 meter long, Erbstollen under the shift foreman JG Fuchß, who was appointed in 1742, was the last major new excavation in the area, took almost ten years and ended in failure, as no new ore bursts were approached. After 1751 this mining operation was stopped.
For a short time there were renewed mining attempts in 1769/70 and then from 1792/1801 with several interruptions and finally from 1834 to 1841 under self-employment, but without any notable success. This also applies to other mine buildings in the middle Muldental, such as B. from 1828 to 1831 for the Herrmann Hoffnungs Stolln in Thierbach / Zinnberg.
In the second half of the 19th century, despite the use of modern technology, a renewed decline in mining in the Ore Mountains began. This was due to the discontinuation of the silver coinage (1872) and the gold currency introduced in Germany in connection with the founding of the empire (1873). As a result, large mines had to close at the beginning of the 20th century (Hohenstein-Ernstthal 1910, Freiberg 1913).
The old pits near Wolkenburg were remembered for the last time in 1943. As part of the outsourcing of war-important production out of the range of the Allied bombers, parts for aircraft production in Dessau were also to be manufactured in the Wolkenburg paper mill. To be on the safe side, they began to open up one of the still existing tunnels opposite the paper mill and convert it into an air raid shelter. The plant was not finished before the end of the war.
Received certificates
The memory of mining history had long since died out in the population. The last half-buried entrances to the pits were still known as "foxholes".
Since 1980 the AG Altbergbau & Geologie Westsachsen eV has been working on bringing the past back to light.
The high medieval desert on the Ullersberg has shrunk to an area of about half a hectare due to the agricultural use of the plateau and is much worse preserved than the desert on the staircases near Frankenberg from the same time . Both are archaeological monuments and excavations are reserved for archaeologists.
As early as 1982, not far from Niederwinkel near Waldenburg on the south-western slope of the Ullersberg, the Blessing of God's Erbstolln was open to visitors for the first time. The Stolln, which is a bit away from the Muldental cycle path, has been the location of a broadband seismometer of the Thuringian Seismological Network (TSN) of the FSU Jena and the Thuringian State Office for Environment, Mining and Nature Conservation (TLUBN) since 2012 and can therefore only be visited by appointment and only in the summer months . The tunnel was only cleared and made drivable, but otherwise left in the condition of the 18th century. Therefore, equipment suitable for mining is required for a visit.
The mining archeological work of the working group has been concentrating on the north-western part of the district near Herrnsdorf since 1994. Here the St. Anna treasure trove was gradually prepared as a visitor mine . In the visitor mine St. Anna Fundgrube, mining forms from the 14th, 16th and 20th centuries overlap. This mine is accessible to visitors without special requirements on the opening days, sturdy shoes and clothing suitable for mining are appropriate. At the same time, work is being done to uncover further mining facilities.
From 2008 to 2014 the former mining office in Herrnsdorf was restored with the support of the city and subsidies and saved from decay.
Individual evidence
- ↑ LAPIS, monthly magazine, Chr. Weise Verlag GmbH, Munich, ISSN 0176-1285 , September 1991 edition, pp. 13–26 (detailed description of the location) and October 1978 edition, p. 4 (notification of discovery)
- ^ Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptarchiv Dresden, inventory 10004, No. 25, Bl. 53a, see also Freiberger Urkundenbuch, document No. 877, H. Ermisch, 1886
- ↑ I.Burghardt: "Were, daz daz bergwerg ZCU Fryberg abeginge" - Saxon Meißnischer mining in the late Middle Ages, Proceedings "ArcheoMontan 2012" in: work and research books on Saxony Bodendenkmalpflege. Supplement 26, pp. 177ff, Dresden 2013
- ^ Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptarchiv Dresden, inventory 10004, No. 30, Bl. 102a and 102b, see also Freiberger Urkundenbuch, document No. 952, H. Ermisch, 1886
literature
- Arbeitsgemeinschaft Altbergbau & Geologie Westsachsen eV (Hrsg.): Mining in Wolkenburg - History & Tradition. Beier & Beran Verlag, Langenweißbach 2006, ISBN 3-937517-59-6 .
- Gerhard Cheap : Pleißenland - Vogtland: the empire and the governors. Vogtland Verlag, Plauen 2002, ISBN 3-928828-22-3 .
- State Office for Archeology (Hrsg.): Proceedings “ArcheoMontan 2012” in: Work and research booklets for the preservation of monuments in Saxony. Supplement 26, Dresden 2013, ISBN 978-3-943770-09-4 .
- Wolfgang Schwabenicky : ... was once a rich mountain town. In: Publications of the Kreisarbeitsstelle für Bodendenkmalpflege Mittweida. Issue 1, 1991, p. 13ff.
- Wolfgang Schwabenicky : The medieval silver mining in the Erzgebirge foothills and in the western Erzgebirge. Klaus Gumnior Verlag, Chemnitz 2009, ISBN 978-3-937386-20-1 , p. 179ff.
- Wolfgang Schwabenicky : The desert medieval mountain town on the Ullersberg near Wolkenburg. in: Sächsische Heimatblätter 62 (2016) 3, pp. 218–224
