Lößnitz

Bergstadt Lößnitz, sometimes also called Muhme for its age, is a town in the district of Erzgebirgskreis, Saxony, Germany, and belongs to the Town League of Silberberg . Its name comes from the Slavic lesnice, meaning “forest place”.GeographyLößnitz is a small town in the western part of the Ore Mountains lying nestled among wooded mountain ranges in a glen, roughly 432 m above sea level. It lies 4 km northeast of Aue and 27 km southwest of Chemnitz.Constituent communitiesLößnitz has six Ortsteile, namely Affalter, Dittersdorf, Grüna, Dreihansen, Niederlößnitz and Streitwald .HistoryLößnitz was founded by the Castle Counts at Meißen in 1170, and in a document from 1284 it was already described as a Civitas. The town’s first documentary mention, however, had already come in 1238, in which it was named as “Lesnitz the forest place”.Lößnitz’s early history is somewhat speculative. A schoolmaster is mentioned as being in the town in 1304, for instance, leading to the inference that the Lößnitz Latin school was already there then. Likewise, the first known mayor Hermann von Buten appears in the town’s history in 1372, leading to further speculation that there must have been a town hall by that time.In 1382, Lößnitz was designated a Bergstadt and a year later the whole town burnt right down as far as the town mill that stood before the gates. In 1406, the Count of Schönburg acquired the County of Hartenstein and made Lößnitz its seat.