Raschau
Encyclopedia
Raschau is a former municipality in the district of Aue-Schwarzenberg
in Saxony
, Germany
. Since 1 January 2008, Raschau and Markersbach
have formed the municipality Raschau-Markersbach
.
in the valley of the river Mittweida, which is also known as the Raschauer Grund.
The publisher August Schumann
(Vollständiges Staats-, Post- und Zeitungs-Lexikon von Sachsen. Zwickau: Schumann, 1822, S. 758ff.) described the community’s location in 1822 thus:
“It lies, mostly surrounded by the Schwarzenberg Amt area, 2 hours southsoutheast of Grünhayn, ¾ to 1¼ hours eastsoutheast of Schwarzenberg, 1½ to 2 hours westsouthwest of Scheibenberg; on the Mittweide, which joins the Pöhl at the community’s lower end; along the new country road from Schwarzenberg to Annaberg; in a pleasant valley bordered on the north by the steep Raschauer Knochen, on the southeast by the gentler Ziegenberg (at which 100 years ago the mine founder Christian was active), to the southwest, however, owing to its meeting the Pöhl Valley, becomes a broad, charming and fruitful floodplain; the community’s elevation runs from 1450 to almost 1550 Parisian feet
if one is looking from the lone houses; its length stretches to ⅝ of an hour, and its direction goes from west to east.”
s from the Grünhain Monastery at the Emmlerfelsen, which triggered the establishment of mining
, foundries and ironworks
in and around Raschau. By the end of the 17th century, other stone worthy of mining was found at the Raschauer Knochen (551 m), mainly tin ore, iron ore and gravel
, and also small amounts of silver
, whereupon new lodes began to be mined, although their yields were mostly only small. Only two of Raschau’s pits brought rich deposits to light. The Allerheiligen-Fundgrube (“All Hallows Lode”) worked, besides silver, bismuth
and cobalt
ores, also gravel, which served as the basis for sulphur and vitriolic acid making. The Seegen Gottes (“God’s Blessing”) Lode brought up silver and tin ores.
, in the south Pöhla
and in the southwest Schwarzenberg’s constituent community of Grünstädtel.
In 1240, Raschau had its first documentary mention when it was donated along with nine surrounding villages to the Grünhain Monastery. Raschau was settled, presumably by Main Frankish farmers somewhat earlier, perhaps in the second half of the 12th century. It was laid out as a typical forest homestead village (Waldhufendorf
). The first mill must have appeared a short time later, for as early as 1240, today’s Süß-Mühle is mentioned in a document. An ironworks in Raschau is mentioned for the first time in 1401. In the time of the Reformation
came the first sources giving a glimpse of the villagers, and so in 1531, history records, besides 30 landowners, nine crofters and cottagers whose family names are still to be found in the village, among them Teubner, Neubert and Ficker.
The 17th century in Raschau was shaped by two catastrophes, the Thirty Years' War
and the plague, which last beset the village in 1680.
In the time following this, Raschau developed itself quite well; besides the flourishing mining industry at the lodes around the community, there was also lace
tatting and the population swelled considerably. In the first half of the 19th century it had reached 2,000. The second half of the same century was characterized by industrialization. The first cork
factory in the village, founded in 1859 by Wilhelm Merkel, was a product of this era. The Schwarzenberg-to-Annaberg railway line, dedicated in 1889, stopped at the community, and ever more, Raschauers earned their living working in the factories. The village’s 20th century history went much as it did in other villages in Saxony. The past several years have been characterized by emigration
and joblessness.
inhabitants stretching from the ironworks to Unterscheibe over a “small mile”.
The church books from both villages give information about losses among the villages’ own ranks. In Raschau it was the carpenter Heinrich Bach, Martin Ruder and Paul Weichel as well as Thomas Ficker’s farmhand “all of whom one day, by the emperor’s rapacious warriors who invaded on 20 August, were mown down”. On 24 August 1632, all four were buried at Raschau’s graveyard. That not all the dead could be buried right away is shown in another entry in the church book. Only on 18 September was the Raschauer Heinrich Händel “(who was also shot by the foe on 20 August and afterwards found dead on 17 September on the supply road near Crotendorff in the bushes by a cowherd)” buried.
Also as the war wore on, enemy soldiers kept cropping up in Raschau, and so on 5 August 1633 Caspar Merkel “who was shot down by the emperor’s rapacious soldiers in his herb garden” was buried. In 1640, Peter Weigel’s wife Barbara and their daughter Margaretha died while fleeing into the woods from the invading Swedes
as most of the villagers did. One froze on her flight, and the other was lost and her remains – “a few bones and clothing remnants” – were found only months later and buried. From these and other examples, the unbearable circumstances of this time are clear. Only in the late 17th century did Raschauers get back on their feet economically, recovering slowly from the war’s aftermath.
in March of that year and then died within three days. What followed was by far the village’s worst ever epidemic. All together, by December, 33 people had died of the Plague; among them, whole families were wiped out. To thwart the epidemic’s further spread, the dead were no longer buried at the graveyard, but rather in the woods.
The second wave of the Plague that beset Raschau in the 17th century reached the village in the autumn of 1640. It seems to have been brought by soldiers who stayed during the pullout in and around Raschau. This time 15 Raschauers lost their lives. Hans Weigel’s family was the worst hit. After five of his children died within a fortnight, both he and his wife were then buried in early October.
There was one last outbreak of the Plague in the village in 1680. Within two months, 32 Raschauers died of it. Some of the dead were buried at the graveyard, others in the woods or on the meadow. To avoid being infected, neither the minister nor the gravedigger was willing to take on the job of burying the dead, often leaving the victims’ families to deal with the arrangements themselves. In the worst case, nobody was willing to bury the dead, and thus Euphrosina Neubert, who “died in the parish wood” on 23 September of that year, was “eaten by foxes and dogs”. In mid October, the Plague disappeared from Raschau as quickly as it had appeared.
In the earliest centuries of settlement in the valley, the villagers had to go to Markersbach
to attend church services. Even in Catholic times, however, Raschau must have acquired its own church, for in 1460, Raschau was described as a branch parish of Markersbach. As late as the early 16th century, the monks from the Grünhain Monastery were supplying church services before Raschau, in the course of the Reformation, acquired its own minister. The exact time when the Evangelical Allerheiligenkirche (“All Hallows’ Church”) arose is unknown. In 1925, 3,942 of the 3,777 inhabitants were adherents of the Lutheran faith
, 26 were Catholic
and 105 either held other beliefs or had none. Since 2001 Raschau has formed a parish with the St.-Annen-Kirchgemeinde (“Saint Anne’s Parish”) in Grünstädtel. Furthermore, since 2006, a sister church relationship has existed with the St.-Barbara-Kirchgemeinde in Markersbach
. Raschau is also the local Evangelical Methodist Church region’s namesake; this region includes Raschau, Markersbach and Scheibenberg. There is a Methodist
church near the railway station.
In the 1880s Emil Freitag’s wood grinding shop came into being, soon coming to specialize in cardboard making. Within a few years, the factory expanded into two new works, and later to other communities. The business survived both world wars as well as East Germany, and is still in business today under the name Kartonagen Raschau.
Raschau’s connection to the Schwarzenberg-Annaberg railway line in 1889 fostered the establishment of further factories. By the turn of the century there were, alongside the aforesaid factories, also a case factory, a stucco
factory, a paper covering factory, a machine factory, a locksmith’s shop and an engine works.
The town hall, which is today also the seat of the Raschau-Markersbach-Pöhla administrative community, was dedicated on 11 November 1907 under then mayor Max Jäger.
) vert. Quite likely the arms refer to Raschau’s history as a farming village; however, it is also possible that the arms suggest a name origin of "Ross-Au" ("Ross" is a German
word for “horse” or “steed”). This possibility, however, is deemed unlikely today.
in Raschau comes from the second half of the 16th century. The village’s first teacher, Martin Mankrafft, could do no more than read and write
. Whatever further development the educational landscape in Raschau underwent has hardly been researched. All that is known for sure is that that, from the beginning, there was only ever one teacher. Only when the village’s population began to swell markedly was the teacher in Raschau sent an assistant. Thus was the schoolteacher from Bernsbach
, Immanuel Ficker active in Raschau for more than 50 years, being supported in his later years by a younger colleague from Hirschfeld. In 1836, there were a boys’ school and a girls’ school, in each of which one teacher
had to teach classes with an average of more than 80 pupils. Since the two schoolhouses were no longer up to the task of handling the growing numbers of pupils, a third schoolhouse was procured in 1848 in which the youngest pupils were to be taught by a newly hired third teacher. After the condition of the boys’ school no longer allowed for proper instruction in 1877, the construction of a new school was approved. This was built in 1883 and dedicated the following year. By the end of the century, Raschau counted five teachers who taught almost 600 pupils in all. In 1919 there were eight educators who nevertheless still had to manage enormous classes with 70 pupils. In the last few months of the Second World War, there was no more regular instruction. The schoolhouse had been taken over for quite a different purpose, namely to house refugee
s. On 1 September 1945, instruction provisionally began again. In the 1947-1948 school year, 13 new teachers, whose training had been fast-tracked for the occasion, were hired. In 1950, the Raschau elementary school was renamed Erweiterte Oberschule Bertolt Brecht
. Through the 1950s, the school was continually expanded so that by 1958, a ten-class teaching system had been established. In 1973, the school was once again given a new name. It would now be called the Clara-Zetkin-
Oberschule.
After many mineworkers began to convert their lodgings in the Siedlung des Friedens (“Peace Estate”) into family flats beginning in the 1950s, there arose the need for the estate’s children to have their own school. This was first housed in a building whose use had until then been foreseen for Soviet
military personnel and in the 1960s, owing to the ever growing numbers of pupils, it was expanded. Finally, in the 1970s, a completely new school building was built, taking on its function in October 1973, and two years later being dubbed the Paul-Blechschmidt-Oberschule.
In the early 1990s, East Germany’s school system was cast aside. Since then, the Clara-Zetkin-Oberschule has served as a primary school. The Mittelschule Raschau that had sprung from the former Paul-Blechschmidt-Oberschule was dissolved in the mid-2000s owing to low pupil numbers. Today’s Grundschule Raschau is attended by pupils from Raschau, Langenberg and Markersbach
.
Aue-Schwarzenberg
Aue-Schwarzenberg is a former district in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It was bounded by the Czech Republic and the districts of Vogtlandkreis, Zwickauer Land, Stollberg and Annaberg.- History :...
in 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...
. Since 1 January 2008, Raschau and Markersbach
Markersbach
Markersbach is a former municipality on the river Große Mittweida in the district of Aue-Schwarzenberg in Saxony, Germany. Since 1 January 2008, Markersbach and Raschau have formed the municipality of Raschau-Markersbach.- History :...
have formed the municipality Raschau-Markersbach
Raschau-Markersbach
Raschau-Markersbach is a municipality in the district of Erzgebirgskreis in Saxony, Germany. It was formed on 1 January 2008, by the merger of the former municipalities Markersbach and Raschau.- References :...
.
Location
Raschau lies 3.5 kilometres east of the town of SchwarzenbergSchwarzenberg, Saxony
Schwarzenberg is a town in the district of Erzgebirgskreis in Saxony’s Ore Mountains, near the German–Czech border. The town lies roughly 15 km southeast of Aue, and 35 km southwest of Chemnitz....
in the valley of the river Mittweida, which is also known as the Raschauer Grund.
The publisher August Schumann
August Schumann
Friedrich August Gottlob Schumann was a German bookseller and publisher. His best-known work is the 18-volume Lexicon of Saxony, which was completed after his death by Albert Schiffner...
(Vollständiges Staats-, Post- und Zeitungs-Lexikon von Sachsen. Zwickau: Schumann, 1822, S. 758ff.) described the community’s location in 1822 thus:
“It lies, mostly surrounded by the Schwarzenberg Amt area, 2 hours southsoutheast of Grünhayn, ¾ to 1¼ hours eastsoutheast of Schwarzenberg, 1½ to 2 hours westsouthwest of Scheibenberg; on the Mittweide, which joins the Pöhl at the community’s lower end; along the new country road from Schwarzenberg to Annaberg; in a pleasant valley bordered on the north by the steep Raschauer Knochen, on the southeast by the gentler Ziegenberg (at which 100 years ago the mine founder Christian was active), to the southwest, however, owing to its meeting the Pöhl Valley, becomes a broad, charming and fruitful floodplain; the community’s elevation runs from 1450 to almost 1550 Parisian feet
French units of measurement
France has a unique history of units of measurement due to radical attempts to adopt a metric system following the French Revolution.In the Ancien régime, before 1795, France used a system of measures that had many of the characteristics of the modern Imperial System of units...
if one is looking from the lone houses; its length stretches to ⅝ of an hour, and its direction goes from west to east.”
Geology and mining
Early in the 16th century, iron ore was found by the monkMonk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
s from the Grünhain Monastery at the Emmlerfelsen, which triggered the establishment of mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
, foundries and ironworks
Ironworks
An ironworks or iron works is a building or site where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and/or steel products are made. The term is both singular and plural, i.e...
in and around Raschau. By the end of the 17th century, other stone worthy of mining was found at the Raschauer Knochen (551 m), mainly tin ore, iron ore and gravel
Gravel
Gravel is composed of unconsolidated rock fragments that have a general particle size range and include size classes from granule- to boulder-sized fragments. Gravel can be sub-categorized into granule and cobble...
, and also small amounts of silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
, whereupon new lodes began to be mined, although their yields were mostly only small. Only two of Raschau’s pits brought rich deposits to light. The Allerheiligen-Fundgrube (“All Hallows Lode”) worked, besides silver, bismuth
Bismuth
Bismuth is a chemical element with symbol Bi and atomic number 83. Bismuth, a trivalent poor metal, chemically resembles arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth may occur naturally uncombined, although its sulfide and oxide form important commercial ores. The free element is 86% as dense as lead...
and cobalt
Cobalt
Cobalt is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. It is found naturally only in chemically combined form. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal....
ores, also gravel, which served as the basis for sulphur and vitriolic acid making. The Seegen Gottes (“God’s Blessing”) Lode brought up silver and tin ores.
Neighbouring communities
Bordering communities are, in the north, Langenberg (although this has been amalgamated with Raschau since 1924), in the east MarkersbachMarkersbach
Markersbach is a former municipality on the river Große Mittweida in the district of Aue-Schwarzenberg in Saxony, Germany. Since 1 January 2008, Markersbach and Raschau have formed the municipality of Raschau-Markersbach.- History :...
, in the south Pöhla
Pöhla
Pöhla was a municipality lying in the valley of the river Pöhlwasser, in the district of Aue-Schwarzenberg in Saxony, Germany. Since 1 January 2008, it is part of the town Schwarzenberg.- Constituent communities :...
and in the southwest Schwarzenberg’s constituent community of Grünstädtel.
Historic overview
Waldhufendorf
The Waldhufendorf is a form of rural settlement established in areas of forest clearing with the farms arranged in a series along a road or stream, like beads on a chain...
). The first mill must have appeared a short time later, for as early as 1240, today’s Süß-Mühle is mentioned in a document. An ironworks in Raschau is mentioned for the first time in 1401. In the time of the Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
came the first sources giving a glimpse of the villagers, and so in 1531, history records, besides 30 landowners, nine crofters and cottagers whose family names are still to be found in the village, among them Teubner, Neubert and Ficker.
The 17th century in Raschau was shaped by two catastrophes, the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
and the plague, which last beset the village in 1680.
In the time following this, Raschau developed itself quite well; besides the flourishing mining industry at the lodes around the community, there was also lace
Lace
Lace is an openwork fabric, patterned with open holes in the work, made by machine or by hand. The holes can be formed via removal of threads or cloth from a previously woven fabric, but more often open spaces are created as part of the lace fabric. Lace-making is an ancient craft. True lace was...
tatting and the population swelled considerably. In the first half of the 19th century it had reached 2,000. The second half of the same century was characterized by industrialization. The first cork
Stopper (plug)
A bung is truncated cylindrical or conical closure to seal a container, such as a bottle, tube or barrel. Unlike a lid which encloses a container from the outside without displacing the inner volume, a bung is partially inserted inside the container to act as a seal...
factory in the village, founded in 1859 by Wilhelm Merkel, was a product of this era. The Schwarzenberg-to-Annaberg railway line, dedicated in 1889, stopped at the community, and ever more, Raschauers earned their living working in the factories. The village’s 20th century history went much as it did in other villages in Saxony. The past several years have been characterized by emigration
Emigration
Emigration is the act of leaving one's country or region to settle in another. It is the same as immigration but from the perspective of the country of origin. Human movement before the establishment of political boundaries or within one state is termed migration. There are many reasons why people...
and joblessness.
The Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War did not stop even at Raschau and its inhabitants. The village was especially badly stricken in the summer of 1632 when the later field marshal Heinrich von Holk invaded Saxony. On 20 August he reached Raschau with his troops and burnt down Enoch Pöckel’s heirs’ ironworks estate, which lay in Mittweida’s lower end, right on the boundary with Raschau. After the attack on the ironworks, Holk ordered his men to encircle the village. To this end, he ordered 300 horses on the Emmler, and two further groups with over 100 horses at the village’s eastern and southern ends, to thwart – and kill – any farmers who tried to flee. Ore Mountain chronicler Christian Lehmann reports fights between Holk’s troops and Raschau and MarkersbachMarkersbach
Markersbach is a former municipality on the river Große Mittweida in the district of Aue-Schwarzenberg in Saxony, Germany. Since 1 January 2008, Markersbach and Raschau have formed the municipality of Raschau-Markersbach.- History :...
inhabitants stretching from the ironworks to Unterscheibe over a “small mile”.
The church books from both villages give information about losses among the villages’ own ranks. In Raschau it was the carpenter Heinrich Bach, Martin Ruder and Paul Weichel as well as Thomas Ficker’s farmhand “all of whom one day, by the emperor’s rapacious warriors who invaded on 20 August, were mown down”. On 24 August 1632, all four were buried at Raschau’s graveyard. That not all the dead could be buried right away is shown in another entry in the church book. Only on 18 September was the Raschauer Heinrich Händel “(who was also shot by the foe on 20 August and afterwards found dead on 17 September on the supply road near Crotendorff in the bushes by a cowherd)” buried.
Also as the war wore on, enemy soldiers kept cropping up in Raschau, and so on 5 August 1633 Caspar Merkel “who was shot down by the emperor’s rapacious soldiers in his herb garden” was buried. In 1640, Peter Weigel’s wife Barbara and their daughter Margaretha died while fleeing into the woods from the invading Swedes
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
as most of the villagers did. One froze on her flight, and the other was lost and her remains – “a few bones and clothing remnants” – were found only months later and buried. From these and other examples, the unbearable circumstances of this time are clear. Only in the late 17th century did Raschauers get back on their feet economically, recovering slowly from the war’s aftermath.
The Plague
After Holk’s troops raided the village in 1632 there came the next year a further, much worse threat to the villagers. The year’s first Plague death was Jacob Junghans. It was not, as commonly claimed, the retreating troops’ doing, but rather Jacob Junghans himself had brought the Black Death to town. He came back from a trip to FreibergFreiberg, Saxony
Freiberg is a city in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, administrative center of the Mittelsachsen district.-History:The city was founded in 1186, and has been a center of the mining industry in the Ore Mountains for centuries...
in March of that year and then died within three days. What followed was by far the village’s worst ever epidemic. All together, by December, 33 people had died of the Plague; among them, whole families were wiped out. To thwart the epidemic’s further spread, the dead were no longer buried at the graveyard, but rather in the woods.
The second wave of the Plague that beset Raschau in the 17th century reached the village in the autumn of 1640. It seems to have been brought by soldiers who stayed during the pullout in and around Raschau. This time 15 Raschauers lost their lives. Hans Weigel’s family was the worst hit. After five of his children died within a fortnight, both he and his wife were then buried in early October.
There was one last outbreak of the Plague in the village in 1680. Within two months, 32 Raschauers died of it. Some of the dead were buried at the graveyard, others in the woods or on the meadow. To avoid being infected, neither the minister nor the gravedigger was willing to take on the job of burying the dead, often leaving the victims’ families to deal with the arrangements themselves. In the worst case, nobody was willing to bury the dead, and thus Euphrosina Neubert, who “died in the parish wood” on 23 September of that year, was “eaten by foxes and dogs”. In mid October, the Plague disappeared from Raschau as quickly as it had appeared.
Religion
Markersbach
Markersbach is a former municipality on the river Große Mittweida in the district of Aue-Schwarzenberg in Saxony, Germany. Since 1 January 2008, Markersbach and Raschau have formed the municipality of Raschau-Markersbach.- History :...
to attend church services. Even in Catholic times, however, Raschau must have acquired its own church, for in 1460, Raschau was described as a branch parish of Markersbach. As late as the early 16th century, the monks from the Grünhain Monastery were supplying church services before Raschau, in the course of the Reformation, acquired its own minister. The exact time when the Evangelical Allerheiligenkirche (“All Hallows’ Church”) arose is unknown. In 1925, 3,942 of the 3,777 inhabitants were adherents of the Lutheran faith
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
, 26 were Catholic
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
and 105 either held other beliefs or had none. Since 2001 Raschau has formed a parish with the St.-Annen-Kirchgemeinde (“Saint Anne’s Parish”) in Grünstädtel. Furthermore, since 2006, a sister church relationship has existed with the St.-Barbara-Kirchgemeinde in Markersbach
Markersbach
Markersbach is a former municipality on the river Große Mittweida in the district of Aue-Schwarzenberg in Saxony, Germany. Since 1 January 2008, Markersbach and Raschau have formed the municipality of Raschau-Markersbach.- History :...
. Raschau is also the local Evangelical Methodist Church region’s namesake; this region includes Raschau, Markersbach and Scheibenberg. There is a Methodist
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
church near the railway station.
Population development
Population growth reached its peak in the 1960s with a figure of 6,283 in 1964. In 1990, there were only 5,181 inhabitants reported in Raschau (source: Statistisches Landesamt). Through the 1990s, the population figure once again fell sharply, so that by 2005, it had fallen by roughly one fifth of the 1990 figure, to 4,090 (ibid. ). This has become a trend, and in the middle term, the population’s average age is set to rise markedly.| class="wikitable"> | Year | Inhabitants | Year | Inhabitants |
|---|---|---|---|
| about 1200 | 22 farming families | 1910 | 3,171 |
| 1531 | 30 hereditary property owners, 9 further household heads, 5 housemates | 1939 | 3,972 |
| 1628 | 35 hereditary landowners, 15 crofters, 34 cottagers as well as "Juncker Rudolff von Schmertzing an langen bergk" | 1946 | 3,955 |
| 1764 | 41 hereditary landowners, 12 crofters, 57 cottagers | 1950 | 5,395 |
| 1807 | 104 hereditary landowners, crofters and cottagers | 1964 | 6,283 |
| 1834 | 2,132 Inhabitants | 1990 | 5,181 |
| 1871 | 2,268 | 2006 | 3,952 |
Industrialization
The offshoots of industrialization reached Raschau only in the second half of the 19th century. In 1859, Wilhelm Merkel founded Raschau’s first factory, a cork factory that can still be recognized from a distance, empty and forsaken though it now is. Merkel began with only five workers, but the cork factory developed quickly under his successor, becoming the community’s main employer. By 1888, there were 100 employees, and by 1913 there were 350 earning their livings by manufacturing cork.In the 1880s Emil Freitag’s wood grinding shop came into being, soon coming to specialize in cardboard making. Within a few years, the factory expanded into two new works, and later to other communities. The business survived both world wars as well as East Germany, and is still in business today under the name Kartonagen Raschau.
Raschau’s connection to the Schwarzenberg-Annaberg railway line in 1889 fostered the establishment of further factories. By the turn of the century there were, alongside the aforesaid factories, also a case factory, a stucco
Stucco
Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...
factory, a paper covering factory, a machine factory, a locksmith’s shop and an engine works.
Mayor
Raschau’s chief mayor is Henry Solbrig (FWG Raschau), born in 1947, who was confirmed in office after receiving 97.2% of the vote in the mayoral election on 10 June 2001. No-one opposed his candidacy.The town hall, which is today also the seat of the Raschau-Markersbach-Pöhla administrative community, was dedicated on 11 November 1907 under then mayor Max Jäger.
Coat of arms
How the community’s arms came to be is not known with any certainty, as no source can be authenticated. However, the arms might be heraldically described thus: In gules a horse springing argent upon a three-knolled hill (Dreiberg in German heraldryHeraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
) vert. Quite likely the arms refer to Raschau’s history as a farming village; however, it is also possible that the arms suggest a name origin of "Ross-Au" ("Ross" is a German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
word for “horse” or “steed”). This possibility, however, is deemed unlikely today.
Museums
Closely bound with Raschau’s history is the village’s oldest mill, which had a documentary mention as early as 1240. There are guided tours the year round, and once a year the mill is operated.Buildings
- "Allerheiligenkirche"
- farmhouses built in half-timbered style, the oldest from 1687.
Education
The first report of a schoolSchool
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
in Raschau comes from the second half of the 16th century. The village’s first teacher, Martin Mankrafft, could do no more than read and write
Literacy
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...
. Whatever further development the educational landscape in Raschau underwent has hardly been researched. All that is known for sure is that that, from the beginning, there was only ever one teacher. Only when the village’s population began to swell markedly was the teacher in Raschau sent an assistant. Thus was the schoolteacher from Bernsbach
Bernsbach
Bernsbach is a community in the district of Erzgebirgskreis in the Free State of Saxony in Germany that together with its constituent community of Oberpfannenstiel has roughly 4,700 inhabitants.- Geography :...
, Immanuel Ficker active in Raschau for more than 50 years, being supported in his later years by a younger colleague from Hirschfeld. In 1836, there were a boys’ school and a girls’ school, in each of which one teacher
had to teach classes with an average of more than 80 pupils. Since the two schoolhouses were no longer up to the task of handling the growing numbers of pupils, a third schoolhouse was procured in 1848 in which the youngest pupils were to be taught by a newly hired third teacher. After the condition of the boys’ school no longer allowed for proper instruction in 1877, the construction of a new school was approved. This was built in 1883 and dedicated the following year. By the end of the century, Raschau counted five teachers who taught almost 600 pupils in all. In 1919 there were eight educators who nevertheless still had to manage enormous classes with 70 pupils. In the last few months of the Second World War, there was no more regular instruction. The schoolhouse had been taken over for quite a different purpose, namely to house refugee
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
s. On 1 September 1945, instruction provisionally began again. In the 1947-1948 school year, 13 new teachers, whose training had been fast-tracked for the occasion, were hired. In 1950, the Raschau elementary school was renamed Erweiterte Oberschule Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
. Through the 1950s, the school was continually expanded so that by 1958, a ten-class teaching system had been established. In 1973, the school was once again given a new name. It would now be called the Clara-Zetkin-
Clara Zetkin
Clara Zetkin was a German Marxist theorist, activist, and fighter for women's rights. In 1910, she organized the first International Women's Day....
Oberschule.
After many mineworkers began to convert their lodgings in the Siedlung des Friedens (“Peace Estate”) into family flats beginning in the 1950s, there arose the need for the estate’s children to have their own school. This was first housed in a building whose use had until then been foreseen for Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
military personnel and in the 1960s, owing to the ever growing numbers of pupils, it was expanded. Finally, in the 1970s, a completely new school building was built, taking on its function in October 1973, and two years later being dubbed the Paul-Blechschmidt-Oberschule.
In the early 1990s, East Germany’s school system was cast aside. Since then, the Clara-Zetkin-Oberschule has served as a primary school. The Mittelschule Raschau that had sprung from the former Paul-Blechschmidt-Oberschule was dissolved in the mid-2000s owing to low pupil numbers. Today’s Grundschule Raschau is attended by pupils from Raschau, Langenberg and Markersbach
Markersbach
Markersbach is a former municipality on the river Große Mittweida in the district of Aue-Schwarzenberg in Saxony, Germany. Since 1 January 2008, Markersbach and Raschau have formed the municipality of Raschau-Markersbach.- History :...
.
Sons and daughters of the community
On 20 March 1786, Dorothea Friederica Peck, the then Raschau minister’s daughter, was buried at Raschau’s churchyard. She had been involved with the later educator and theologian Gustav Friedrich Dinter, for in her gravestone inscription can be seen the words Dinters Braut (“Dinter’s bride”). Still today, the Dinterkreuz can be found in Raschau, a cross that commemorates Dinter, who died in 1839.Other celebrities connected with the community
- Ortrun EnderleinOrtrun EnderleinOrtrun Enderlein is an East German luger who competed in the 1960s. She was born in Werdau. She won the gold medal in the women's singles event at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck...
(b. 1943), two-time Women’s World Champion and first women’s Olympic gold medallist in lugeLugeA Luge is a small one- or two-person sled on which one sleds supine and feet-first. Steering is done by flexing the sled's runners with the calf of each leg or exerting opposite shoulder pressure to the seat. Racing sleds weigh 21-25 kilograms for singles and 25-30 kilograms for doubles. Luge...
(1964).
Further reading
- Siegfried Hübschmann: Raschau. Vom Werden und Wachsen einer Gemeinde. – published by the community council on the occasion of the 750th anniversary, Raschau 1990