Geringswalde () is a town in the district of

Mittelsachsen Mittelsachsen ("Central Saxony") is a district ('' Kreis'') 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 ...

, in

Saxony Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. It is situated 12 km northwest of

Mittweida Mittweida () is a town in Saxony, Germany, in the Mittelsachsen district. Geography Mittweida is situated on the river Zschopau, 18 km north of Chemnitz, and 54 km west of Dresden. Embedded within the steep hills and valleys of the riv ...

, and 27 km north of

Chemnitz Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt , ) is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden. It is the 28th largest city of Germany as well as the fourth largest city in the area of former East Germany a ...

History

The town was first mentioned in 1233 in a document confirming the establishment of a

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

nun's convent as ''Gerungeswalde'' as a deserted ''

oppidum An ''oppidum'' (plural ''oppida'') is a large fortified Iron Age settlement or town. ''Oppida'' are primarily associated with the Celtic late La Tène culture, emerging during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, spread across Europe, stretchi ...

'' together with a destroyed castle . After the

Protestant reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

, the convent was dissolved and transformed into a manor. The town was never walled. An orthodox

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

school was funded in 1566, but closed again in 1568 due to the founder and the rector being accused of Gnesio-Lutheranism. 134 freeholders were counted in 1587, but in 1764 there were only 36 freeholders and 168 smallholders. A stream traversing the grounds of the town was dammed in the Middle Ages, forming a large pond known as ''Großteich''. Until the 19th century, the economy was chiefly based on

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

and

linen Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant. Linen is very strong, absorbent, and dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. It also ...

manufacture. After

industrialization Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...

Geringswalde was known for the production of

furniture Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Fu ...

(mainly chairs and armchairs) and

cutting tools In the context of machining, a cutting tool or cutter is typically a hardened metal tool that is used to cut, shape, and remove material from a workpiece by means of machining tools as well as abrasive tools by way of shear deformation. The majori ...

. The manor was dissolved after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and most of its buildings demolished. Geringswalde was part of Kreis

Rochlitz Rochlitz (; hsb, Rochlica) is a major district town (Große Kreisstadt) in the district of Mittelsachsen, in Saxony, Germany. Rochlitz is the head of the "municipal partnership Rochlitz" (Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Rochlitz) with its other members ...

from 1945 to 1994, of Landkreis Mittweida from 1994 to 2008 and belongs now to the Central Saxony administrative district. In 1949, the neighbouring villages of Hilmsdorf and Klostergeringswalde were incorporated into the town, Altgeringswalde joined in 1994, and in 1999 Aitzendorf (with Dittmannsdorf), Arras, and Holzhausen (with Hoyersdorf and Neuwallwitz) were incorporated. From 1893 to 1997, the town was served by the

standard-gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in Ea ...

railway line Waldheim - Rochlitz.

Economy

Traditional occupations were agriculture,

weaving Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal th ...

, legwear

knitting Knitting is a method by which yarn is manipulated to create a textile, or fabric. It is used to create many types of garments. Knitting may be done by hand or by machine. Knitting creates stitches: loops of yarn in a row, either flat or i ...

tannery Tanning may refer to: *Tanning (leather), treating animal skins to produce leather *Sun tanning, using the sun to darken pale skin **Indoor tanning, the use of artificial light in place of the sun **Sunless tanning, application of a stain or dye t ...

, and

brewing Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and #Fermenting, fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with Yeast#Beer, yeast. It may be done in a brewery ...

. A stream drove several

watermill A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production of ...

s. Industrialisation in the 19th century brought large-scale furniture making and

metalworking Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on every scale ...

to the town. There were also a

brickyard A brickyard or brickfield is a place or yard where bricks are made, fired, and stored, or sometimes sold or otherwise distributed from. Brick makers work in a brick yard. A brick yard may be constructed near natural sources of clay or on o ...

and a cigar factory. The brewery closed in the 1920s. After

until the early 1990s the economy of the town was dominated by tool making, furniture making and the production of

hydraulic cylinder A hydraulic cylinder (also called a linear hydraulic motor) is a mechanical actuator that is used to give a unidirectional force through a unidirectional stroke. It has many applications, notably in construction equipment (engineering vehicles ...

s. Some smaller factories produced clothes, cosmetics, electronic circuits, animal fodder, and concrete parts. Most factories closed in the early 1990s, but the tradition of metalworking in particular is still continued by several

small and medium-sized enterprises Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are businesses whose personnel and revenue numbers fall below certain limits. The abbreviation "SME" is used by international organizations such as the World Bank ...

. A number of

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...

s has been erected on the heights surrounding the town since the 2000s.

Sights

File:Geringswalde-Neues+Altes-Rathaus-vonWesten-19-06-2021-1323.jpg, Town hall File:Geringswalde-Lutherkirche-vonSüden-IMG-2563+17-19-06-2021-1059.jpg, Martin Luther church File:Geringswalde-Diesterwegschule-vonSüdwesten-IMG 2764+5-19-06-2021-1129.jpg, Schoolhouse File:Geringswalde-PostmeilenDistanzSäule-Bahnhofsstraße-I7495-01-09-2010-1640.jpg, Post milestone (restored) File:GeringswaldeMarkt.JPG, Market square File:Geringswalde Sornziger Wald Grab 1813.jpg, Grave of a fighter in the Napoleonic wars, north of the town The

neogothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

Martin Luther

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

of 1890 replaces a former romanesque church. The neo-baroque

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

was opened in 1905, the school house in

neo-renaissance Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range o ...

style in 1894. An

observation tower An observation tower is a structure used to view events from a long distance and to create a full 360 degree range of vision to conduct long distance observations. Observation towers are usually at least tall and are made from stone, iron, an ...

named after

Frederick Augustus III of Saxony en, Frederick Augustus John Louis Charles Gustav Gregory Philip von Wettin , image = Friedrich August III van Saksen.jpg , caption = Frederick Augustus III (1914) , succession = King of Saxony , reign = 15 October 1904 – ...

, situated north of the town, opened in 1907. A copy of the 1727

Saxon post milestone A Saxon milepost (german: kursächsische Postmeilensäule, colloquially ''sächsische Postmeilensäule'' or ''Postsäule'') was a milepost in the former Electorate of Saxony that gave distances expressed as journey times to the nearest eighth o ...

(''Postmeilensäule'') stands near the town centre. The original is kept in a museum in

. A

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

in the nearby forest was destroyed in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, only minuscule remains of its basement walls are left. The village church of Altgeringswalde houses a painted wooden

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in paga ...

which was made around 1510 and

restored ''Restored'' is the fourth studio album by American contemporary Christian music musician Jeremy Camp. It was released on November 16, 2004 by BEC Recordings. Track listing Standard release Enhanced edition Deluxe gold edition Standard ...

in 1994.

Personalities

Wilfried Stallknecht Wilfried Stallknecht (12 August 1928 – 22 December 2019) was a German architect, planner and furniture designer. He was known chiefly for his significant role in shaping Germany's post-World War II built environment – particularly that of ...

(born 1928), architect, urban planner and furniture designer * Roselore Sonntag (born 1934), gymnast, Olympic contender in Rome 1960 *

Wolfgang Blochwitz Wolfgang Blochwitz (8 February 1941 – 8 May 2005) was a football goalkeeper from East Germany. Playing career During his club career he played for 1. FC Magdeburg (1960–1966) and FC Carl Zeiss Jena (1966–1976). He made 275 appearances i ...

(1941-2005), football goalkeeper, played 19 times for the national team of the GDR

References

External links

Stadt Geringswalde

{{Authority control Mittelsachsen