Königsbrück is a town in the Bautzen

Bautzen (district)

Bautzen is a district in the Free State of Saxony in Germany including the former districts of Bischofswerda and Kamenz. It is bounded by the Czech Republic, the district of Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge, the district-free city Dresden and the districts of Meißen and Görlitz...

 district, in the Free State of Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

, 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...

. It is situated 14 km (8.7 mi) west of Kamenz

Kamenz

Kamenz is a Lusatian town in eastern Saxony, Germany, with a population of 18,243, and is part of the Bautzen district. The town is located about northeast of Dresden and about northwest of Bautzen....

, and 27 km (16.8 mi) northeast of the Saxon capital Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

. Königsbrück is known as the western gate of the historic Upper Lusatia

Upper Lusatia

Upper Lusatia is a region a biggest part of which belongs to Saxony, a small eastern part belongs to Poland, the northern part to Brandenburg. In Saxony, Upper Lusatia comprises roughly the districts of Bautzen and Görlitz , in Brandenburg the southern part of district Oberspreewald-Lausitz...

 region.

History

First mentioned in 1248 the settlement arose around a fortress in the Bohemian crown land

Lands of the Bohemian Crown

The Lands of the Bohemian Crown , also called the Lands of the Crown of Saint Wenceslas or simply the Bohemian Crown or Czech Crown lands , refers to the area connected by feudal relations under the joint rule of the Bohemian kings...

 of Upper Lusatia where the Via Regia

Via Regia

Via Regia, i.e. "Royal Highway", denotes a mediæval historic road. The term, in the usual sense, means not just a specific road, rather a type of road. It was legally associated with the king and remained under his special protection and guarantee of public peace.There were many such roads in the...

trade route crossed the border with the Margraviate of Meissen. First mentioned as a town in 1331, Königsbrück from 1562 was the administrative centre of a Bohemian state country

State country

State country was a unit of administrative and territorial division in the Bohemian crown lands of Silesia and Upper Lusatia, existing from 15th to 18th centuries. These estates were exempt from feudal tenure by privilege of the Bohemian kings...

 (Freie Standesherrschaft), which passed under the suzerainty of the Saxon Electorate

Electorate of Saxony

The Electorate of Saxony , sometimes referred to as Upper Saxony, was a State of the Holy Roman Empire. It was established when Emperor Charles IV raised the Ascanian duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg to the status of an Electorate by the Golden Bull of 1356...

 according to the 1635 Peace of Prague

Peace of Prague (1635)

The Peace of Prague of 30 May 1635 was a treaty between the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand II and the Electorate of Saxony representing most of the Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire...

. In 1906 the Kingdom of Saxony

Kingdom of Saxony

The Kingdom of Saxony , lasting between 1806 and 1918, was an independent member of a number of historical confederacies in Napoleonic through post-Napoleonic Germany. From 1871 it was part of the German Empire. It became a Free state in the era of Weimar Republic in 1918 after the end of World War...

 had large proving grounds laid out for the XII (1st Royal Saxon) Corps

XII (1st Royal Saxon) Corps

The XII Army Corps was a Saxon corps of the Imperial German Army. It was formed on April 1, 1867 and was headquartered in Dresden, Saxony....

 stationed at Dresden, that after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 were used by the Soviet Army

Soviet Army

The Soviet Army is the name given to the main part of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1992. Previously, it had been known as the Red Army. Informally, Армия referred to all the MOD armed forces, except, in some cases, the Soviet Navy.This article covers the Soviet Ground...

 and finally closed in 1992.

Notable people

• Georg Bartisch
  Georg Bartisch
  Georg Bartisch was a German physician who was a native of Königsbrück, Saxonia. At the age of thirteen he began his medical career as an apprentice to a barber surgeon, and for a considerable portion of his life Bartisch was an itinerant surgeon who plied his trade throughout Saxony, Silesia, and...
  
   (1535–1607), physician
• Rudolf Mühlbauer (1919-2000), Sailor