Waldheim is a town in

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 Augus ...

district, 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 o ...

, Germany.

Geography

It is situated in the valley of the river

Zschopau Zschopau (), is a town in the Erzgebirgskreis district of Saxony, Germany. Geography The town is located on the northwestern slopes of the Ore Mountains, on both banks of the Zschopau River, about south-east from Chemnitz. The highest point ...

, southwest of

Döbeln Döbeln ( hsb, Doblin) is a town in Saxony, Germany, part of the Mittelsachsen district, on both banks of the river Freiberger Mulde. History * 981: First written mention of Döbeln (Margravate of Meissen). * Around 1220: Döbeln is describe ...

, and 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 ...

. The municipal area comprises Waldheim proper, the localities of Reinsdorf, Massanei, Heiligenborn, and Schönberg, as well as parts of the former Ziegra-Knobelsdorf municipality with the localities of Gebersbach, Heyda, Knobelsdorf, Meinsberg, Neuhausen, and Rudelsdorf, which were incorporated in 2013. Neighbouring towns are

Hartha Hartha is a town in the district of Mittelsachsen, in Saxony, Germany. It is situated 11 km west of Döbeln, and 12 km north of Mittweida. Personalities * Carl Grünberg (1847–1906), woven goods manufacturer in Hartha and politi ...

and

Geringswalde Geringswalde () is a town in the district of Mittelsachsen, in Saxony, Germany. It is situated 12 km northwest of Mittweida, and 27 km north of Chemnitz. History The town was first mentioned in 1233 in a document confirming the est ...

as well as the municipality of Kriebstein. Waldheim station is a stop on the Riesa–Chemnitz railway, served by Regionalbahn trains of

Deutsche Bahn The (; abbreviated as DB or DB AG) is the national railway company of Germany. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). The Federal Republic of Germany is its single shareholder. describes itself as the ...

and the private Vogtlandbahn railway company.

History

Waldheim in the

Margraviate of Meissen The Margravate of Meissen (german: Markgrafschaft Meißen) was a medieval principality in the area of the modern German state of Saxony. It originally was a frontier march of the Holy Roman Empire, created out of the vast '' Marca Geronis'' ( Sax ...

was first mentioned in 1198. Waldheim Castle first appeared in a 1271 deed, the surrounding settlement received

town privileges Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the traditio ...

in 1286. The castle was turned into an Augustinian monastery in 1404. The population turned

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

in 1537.

In 1588 Waldheim Castle was again rebuilt as a hunting lodge by Elector Christian I of Saxony. In 1716

Augustus II the Strong Augustus II; german: August der Starke; lt, Augustas II; in Saxony also known as Frederick Augustus I – Friedrich August I (12 May 16701 February 1733), most commonly known as Augustus the Strong, was Elector of Saxony from 1694 as well as Ki ...

inaugurated a

penitentiary A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correcti ...

almshouse An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) was charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the medieval era. They were often targeted at the poor of a locality, at those from cer ...

and

orphanage An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or a ...

in the castle, which is used as a prison (''Justizvollzugsanstalt'') up to today. The hospital ‘Chur-Sächisches Zucht-Waysen und Armen-Haus’ in Waldheim was the first state institution dedicated to the care of the mentally ill on the German territory. The later author

Karl May Karl Friedrich May ( , ; 25 February 1842 – 30 March 1912) was a German author. He is best known for his 19th century novels of fictitious travels and adventures, set in the American Old West with Winnetou and Old Shatterhand as main pro ...

served a sentence here from 1870 to 1874. In the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

era, Waldheim prison became notorious as a detention centre for political opponents, convicted for preparation of

high treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

, undermining military morale or just listening to banned '' Feindsender'' radio stations. Among the inmates were several resistance fighters like Eva Schulze-Knabe, who was convicted by the People's Court in 1942 and freed at the end of World War II. When the

NKVD special camps The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

were handed over from the Soviet Military Administration to the

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

government in 1950, numerous NKVD detainees were transferred to Waldheim for further detention and for trial. From April to June 1950, the

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

authorities put about 3,400 alleged war and Nazi criminals to the Waldheim Trials, ending with prison terms and 32 death sentences.

Notable people

* Abratis, Thomas (born 1967), Nordic combined skier * Altner, Georg (1901-1945), Nazi politician SS brigadier and police president of Dortmund * Fallou, Friedrich Albert (1794-1877), Lawyer and co-founder of the Soil Scientists (''Bodenkundler'') * Fischer von Waldheim, Gotthelf (1771–1853), anatomist, entomologist and paleontologist * Govinda, Anagarika (1898–1985), born Ernst Lothar Hoffmann, Buddhist, founder of the order of the Arya Maitreya Mandala * Kolbe, Georg (1877–1947), sculptor * Meinig, Arthur (1853-1904), born in Waldheim, architect in Hungary * Wussing, Hans (1927-2011), historian of mathematics and science

Politics

The current city council of Waldheim was elected in 2009 and has 18 seats: *5 mandates of the Christian Democratic Union *5 mandates of the Free Democratic Party *5 mandates of the ''Unabhängige Bürger'' ( Citizens' List) *3 mandates of the Left Party

Twin towns

Waldheim is twinned with: *

Landsberg am Lech Landsberg am Lech (Landsberg at the Lech) is a town in southwest Bavaria, Germany, about 65 kilometers west of Munich and 35 kilometers south of Augsburg. It is the capital of the district of Landsberg am Lech. Overview Landsberg is situate ...

, Germany, since 1990 * Siófok,

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croa ...

, since 1996

References

External links

{{Authority control Mittelsachsen