Freiberg, Saxony
Encyclopedia
Freiberg is a city in the Free State of Saxony, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, administrative center of the Mittelsachsen
Mittelsachsen
Mittelsachsen is a district in the Free State of Saxony, Germany.- History :The district was established by merging the former districts of Döbeln, Freiberg and Mittweida as part of the district reform of August 2008.- Geography :...

 district.

History

The city was founded in 1186, and has been a center of the mining industry in the Ore Mountains for centuries. A symbol of this history is the Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg
Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg
The Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg is a small German University of Technology with about 5000 students in the city of Freiberg, Saxony...

 (famously known as the Mining Academy), established in 1765 and the oldest university of mining and metallurgy in the world. Freiberg also has a notable cathedral
Freiberg Cathedral
The Freiberg Cathedral or Cathedral of St Mary is a Lutheran church in Freiberg, Saxony. It is called a cathedral in English even though it has never been the seat of a bishop.-History:...

 containing two famous Gottfried Silbermann
Gottfried Silbermann
Gottfried Silbermann was an influential German constructor of keyboard instruments. He built harpsichords, clavichords, organs, and fortepianos; his modern reputation rests mainly on the latter two.-Life:...

 organs. Furthermore there are two other organs made by Gottfried Silbermann - one at the St. Peter's Church (Petrikirche) and the other one at the St. James' Church (Jacobikirche). The medieval part of Freiberg stands under heritage protection.

The river, Freiberger Mulde, flows through the township of Freiberg, not the city itself.

In 1944 the Flossenburg concentration camp
Flossenbürg concentration camp
Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the Schutzstaffel Economic-Administrative Main Office at Flossenbürg, in the Oberpfalz region of Bavaria, Germany, near the border with Czechoslovakia. Until its liberation in April 1945, more than 96,000 prisoners...

 oversaw a subcamp built outside the city of Freiberg. It housed over 500 female survivors of other camps, including Auschwitz Birkenau. Altogether 50 or so SS women worked in this camp until its evacuation in April 1945. The female survivors later reached the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

.

In 1985 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built the Freiberg Germany Temple
Freiberg Germany Temple
The Freiberg Germany Temple is a temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, located in Freiberg, Saxony, Germany...

 here because of the large number of members in the region.
The Freiberg Germany Temple serves Latter-day Saints from all over Eastern Germany, and majority of the East Europe today.

Regular events

Every year in Freiberg the Mining Town Festival (Bergstadtfest) is held on the last weekend in June with a procession by the historic miners' and ironworkers' guilds, the so called Miners' and Ironworkers' Parade. The Freiberg Christmas Market takes place during Advent. During that time a so-called Mettenschicht
Mettenschicht
The Mettenschicht is an old German mining custom in the Ore Mountains. It is the name given to the last shift worked before Christmas, which ends early with a celebration and meal....

is held with a parade by the miners' and ironworkers' guilds and the SAXONIA Miners Music Corps. This includes a traditional sermon on the mount
Sermon on the Mount
The Sermon on the Mount is a collection of sayings and teachings of Jesus, which emphasizes his moral teaching found in the Gospel of Matthew...

 in St. Peter's Church and waiting by the miners on the second Saturday in Advent. Firmly established is the potter's gathering on a weekend in the second half of April on the Upper Market (Obermarkt). Every year on the Drei Brüder Schacht mineshaft in the quarter of Zug there is a model steam engine gathering
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

. Every year the Freiberg Art Award is given and the Mining Town Queen (Bergstadt-Königin) is chosen.

Twin towns—Sister cities

Freiberg is twinned with: Wałbrzych, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 (since 26 June 1991) Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 (since 1990) Delft
Delft
Delft is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland , the Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam and The Hague....

, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 Ness Ziona
Ness Ziona
Ness Ziona is a city in central Israel founded in 1883. At the end of 2009 the city had a total population of 38,100, and its jurisdiction was 15,579 dunams.-Nahalat Reuben:...

, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 Příbram
Príbram
Příbram is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic with a population of 35,147. The city is located on the Litavka river and the foothills of Brdy, 60 kilometers south-west of Prague, the country's capital...

, Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

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