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The large district town of Plauen is a regional center in the
southwest of the Free State of Saxony and the district town of the
Vogtlandkreis. The largest city in the Saxon Vogtland and fifth
largest city in the Free State is architecturally attractive. It
became known for the embroidery known as Plauen lace.
Plauen
is first mentioned in a document in 1122. In the Middle Ages, the
city became a trading center, and from the 18th century an important
location for the Saxon fabric and textile industry, which was
accompanied by a considerable increase in population. From the 1920s
onwards, the industrial structure of the city was more strongly
shaped by manufacturing in mechanical engineering. Plauen was
severely hit by bombing raids in 1945, but mostly rebuilt. Much of
the Plauen center is characterized by urban, metropolitan
development from the 19th century. The town's landmarks are the old
town hall with its Renaissance gable and the art clock, as well as
the Johanniskirche. The Friedensbrücke is one of the largest stone
arches in the world in Plauen and the Elstertalbrücke is the second
largest brick bridge in the world on the northeastern outskirts.
There are also numerous other architectural and cultural monuments
in the city.
prehistory
Archaeological finds indicate that there were
settlements on the Plauen territory as early as the Bronze Age. The
barrows of Plauen-Chrieschwitz, in the Reissiger Forest and in the
area of Reinsdorf testify to a population that buried their dead
in burial mounds. These finds come from a local group of the Lausitz
culture with close connections to Bohemia, the Main region and
Thuringia. The settlement can be traced back to the middle of the
last millennium BC. Prove. With the discovery of a grave from the
Latène period (around 420 BC) in the area of Ruppertsgrün-Liebau,
the evidence of settlement in the Plauen-Oelsnitz area suddenly
breaks off. No evidence of a Germanic settlement in the Vogtland has
yet been found.
Finds of Roman coins from the second century
AD show that the Plauen area was important as a transit area. A
Slavic settlement can only be proven by some finds for the period
shortly before 1000, although the settlement of the Slavs is
suspected to have been around 800. Late Slavic sherds were
discovered in Plauen-Kleinfriesen, which, due to encrustation,
suggest that there was a Pechsiederei there. The Slavic names of
places, fields and waters in the region are regarded as further
evidence of Slavic settlement. The floor plan based on the block
floor principle is also typical for Slavic settlement areas. The
name of the city Plauen is also of Slavic origin. It comes from
plavna, which means something like floodplain, raft place and is
probably derived from the location in the floodplain of the
Elsteraue.
Foundation and Middle Ages
The city was first
mentioned in 1122 as Vicus Plawe in the consecration certificate of
the Johanniskirche. In the document, Bishop Dietrich I von Naumburg
confirmed the church, which was built by Count Adalbert von
Everstein (in other sources also Eberstein) and equipped with a hoof
of land in the village of Chrieschwitz, a piece of forest and half
the yield from the Elstermühle. The bishop installed the priest
Thomas as pastor and transferred to the church the tithe of the
approximately 20 square miles large Dobnagau, to which he was
entitled until then. The city belonged to the diocese of
Naumburg-Zeitz and was the seat of an archdeaconate.
In 1214
the Teutonic Order founded a branch in Plauen, the German House, to
which in 1224 Vogt Heinrich the Middle of Weida donated the St.
John's Church. In this deed of donation, “de Plawe: Conradus
urbanus” (urbanus = city dweller) is named as a witness, the
earliest evidence that Plauen had received city rights. A special
certificate for the granting of town charter has not been received.
On May 29, 1244, a personal Vogt von Plauen is first attested,
Heinrich II. Von Plauen, who presumably also began building Plauen
Castle. This document mentions both the stone bridge and some
courtyards on the left bank of the Syra (beginnings of the new
town). In 1263 the new town was first mentioned. The oldest original
document kept in the city archives is dated May 25, 1278. With her,
Conrad von Everstein Kunigunde, the wife of Bailiff Heinrich von
Plauen, owned the village and half of the forest in Straßberg and
gave her the right to do so after death to dispose of her husband at
will. On June 25, 1279 the mint of the bailiffs was established,
which bailiff Heinrich the Elder sold on March 11, 1306 to the rural
people and the merchants of Plauen for 600 marks of silver. In 1328
Count Hermann von Everstein renounced all fiefdoms in the Dobe area.
This ended the story of the Eversteiner in Vogtland.
On August 9, 1329, a mayor and sworn citizens were recorded in
Plauen for the first time. The oldest seal of the citizens (sigillum
civium in Plawe) also dates from the same year. Emperor Karl IV
declared the rule of Plauen a hereditary fiefdom of the Bohemian
crown in 1356. In 1430 the Hussites besieged the city under the
leadership of Andreas Prokop. They took the castle, destroyed it and
killed 170 people. They then burned the city down, killing another
500 to 900 people. When the city was rebuilt, the old city and the
new city were united. In 1438, Elector Friedrich the Meek occupied
the city. However, on imperial orders it was returned to Burgrave
Heinrich I, who moved in again in 1439. The successor Burgrave
Heinrich II went down in history as a tyrant. In 1466 he was given
an imperial ban by King Georg Podiebrad. On February 10 of the same
year, Duke Albrecht, the king's son-in-law, who was entrusted with
the enforcement of the Eight, took the town and rule of Plauen,
which was the first time Plauen came under Saxon rule. In 1482
Burgrave Heinrich III renounced. through the contracts of Brüx
finally to his claims on Plauen in favor of the Wettiner Ernst and
Albrecht.
Early modern age
When the Wettin lands were
divided, Plauen fell to the Ernestine side. As a result, the
Reformation gained a foothold in the Vogtland relatively early. From
1521 the last commander of the German House, Georg Eulner, worked in
the Reformation spirit. Together with the Dominican Georg Raute, he
preached in St. John's Church according to the teachings of Martin
Luther. The Reformation was introduced by Raute and Eulner in Plauen
in 1524 and in the entire Saxon Vogtland by 1529. After that, Plauen
was a predominantly Protestant city for many centuries and became
the seat of a superintendent, which was retained even after the
later transfer to the Lords of Plauen and Albertine Saxony. Two
church visits in 1529 and 1533 regulated the final introduction of
the Reformation. Georg Eulner became the first superintendent in
Plauen. In 1540 Plauen was persecuted by witches. Jacob Schultes got
into a witch trial. In the summer of 1546, after the outbreak of the
Schmalkaldic War, the city was fortified and occupied by loyal
followers of the elector. The city council turned to Duke Moritz von
Sachsen with a request for protection, which was granted on
condition of homage.
In 1547, King Ferdinand of Bohemia
enfeoffed the grandson of the once expelled tyrant Heinrich II again
with the town and rule of Plauen. He was allowed to call himself
Burgrave Heinrich IV. In 1548 he was appointed imperial prince at
the Augsburg Reichstag. On May 15 of the same year, the city burned
down almost completely. It was triggered by a shot that a drunk
citizen had fired in the middle of the city. The town hall, the
church, the castle counts and the parish and school buildings burned
down. In 1550 the town hall was rebuilt and in 1556 the
reconstruction of the Johanniskirche was completed. After the death
of Henry IV, his sons Henry V and Henry VI pledged. ownership to
Elector August von Sachsen, who finally acquired the area in 1563.
In 1600 the city council issued the first veil regulation. The
veil lords were recognized as a guild. This should strengthen the
new industry of cotton knitting. Veils are fine cotton fabrics that
are used as headscarves, neck scarves, ruffles and turbans. In 1602
Plauen rose to become the district town of the Voigtlaendischen
Creisses. It was the 13th district town of the electorate. The new
district comprised the offices of Plauen, Pausa and Voigtsberg with
the cities of Adorf, Elsterberg, Gefell, Mühltroff, Neukirchen,
Oelsnitz, Pausa and Schöneck.
On August 13, 1632, Field
Marshal Holk took Plauen in the Thirty Years' War. Although the city
surrendered, it was sacked. On September 12th General Gallas
followed and on October 12th of the same year Wallenstein arrived
with the main army in Plauen, after whose departure the city was set
on fire. In 1634 about half of the population in Plauen died of the
plague. In a town fire in 1635, most of the upper town with the
church and the parish and school buildings burned down. 1656, after
the death of Elector Johann Georg I, his fourth son, Duke Moritz von
Sachsen-Zeitz, received Plauen and the Vogtland. He handed over the
German House to the city in 1667 and had the castle rebuilt from
1670 to 1675, which had been destroyed in 1548. In 1681 Georg Samuel
Dörffel published his work on comet orbits, and in 1697 the first
Fahrpost from Dresden and Zwickau to Nuremberg began its service.
18th and 19th centuries
In 1702, as the founder of the Plauen white goods industry,
Johann Friedrich Schildt built a factory in which cotton weaving
could be carried out on a larger scale. This was followed by a
calico factory in 1753. When Charles XII. occupied Saxony during the
Great Northern War, Swedish troops were billeted in Plauen from 1706
to 1707. In 1718 Duke Moritz Wilhelm died and Plauen fell back to
Electoral Saxony, that is to say to August the Strong. Therefore, in
1725, a Saxon postal mileage column was made for the bridge gate.
During the Seven Years' War the various warring parties took turns
occupying Plauen. In 1758 the city council was forced at gunpoint to
take the oath of allegiance to the Prussian King Friedrich II. In
1786, the city wall between the Straßberger Tor and the Nonnenturm
was removed to make room for houses in the growing city.
The
Bavarian Army, the Württemberg Army, the Prussian Army, the Grande
Armée, the Saxon Army and the Imperial Russian Army moved through
Plauen between 1806 and 1815. They were fed or plundered by the
townspeople. In 1812 Napoleon Bonaparte camped in Plauen on the
Russian campaign. In 1813 refugees from the “great army” came to the
city. After the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig, many wounded
were taken care of in the Gottesackerkirche, where a hospital had
been set up. Many soldiers and many city dwellers died of typhus.
Just a few days after the Battle of Nations, the Kingdom of Saxony,
together with the Reussian principalities and the Duchy of
Altenburg, became the Russian General Government of Saxony for about
a year. Plauen received a garrison of 500–600 Cossacks and Bashkirs
at this time.
The factories built in 1702 and 1753 were
followed by more. In 1829 master weaver Schönherr set up a loom for
bobbinet (a kind of tulle), followed in 1834 by a jacquard loom and
a Swiss finish. On February 2, 1832, a new city ordinance came into
force, with which the newly elected members of the city council and
the city court were introduced on November 4. At the same time, the
mayor Ernst Gottschald, the city council and the larger citizens'
committee took up their offices. In 1833, when gymnastics was
banned, Otto Leonhard Heubner founded the first gymnastics garden on
the Schlossberg in Plauen and in 1840 the general municipal
gymnastics facility. Friedrich Ludwig Jahn's gymnastics movement
spread rapidly from Plauen to all of Saxony. In 1834 a main tax
office was opened in Plauen. In 1835, the Vogtland District and the
Erzgebirge District were merged to form the Zwickau District
Directorate. With this, Plauen lost its status as a district town
and was only the seat of the administrative authority of Vogtland.
To expand the city, the Straßberger and Neundorfer Tor were
demolished in 1837. On the night of September 9-10, 1844, a city
fire destroyed a large part of the city center (107 residential
buildings and 199 side and back buildings). In the course of the
rebuilding, the remains of the Dominican monastery were torn down.
Only the name Klostermarkt still reminds of it. In November 1848,
the Saxon-Bavarian Railway opened the Plauen – Hof line. On April
16, 1851, after completion of the Göltzsch and Elstertal bridges,
the route to Reichenbach (Vogtl) and on via Werdau to Dresden
followed. In 1857 the first embroidery machines were installed in
Plauen. The Aktien-Brauverein was founded on October 23 of the same
year. On August 31, 1860 the city hospital was inaugurated and in
1863 the first mechanical cotton goods weaving mill started
operations.
The production of English tulle curtains began between 1871 and
1874. On November 30, 1874, the Plauen – Eger railway line was
opened and the upper station was rebuilt and expanded. The Elstertal
Railway opened on September 8, 1875. In 1880, a joint venture led by
the businessman Theodor Bickel succeeded in producing
machine-embroidered tulle lace without an underlay for the first
time. The product, initially known as Saxon lace, was first launched
on the market in Paris. The lace, now known as Plauen lace
(Plauen-laces in English, dentelles de Plauen in French), soon
gained a worldwide reputation. In the following three years as many
embroidery machines (2258) were installed as in the 24 years before
(since the first installation in 1857). The machine industry also
experienced an upswing. Gottlieb Hornbogen's machine factory
delivered its 100th embroidery machine in 1881, followed by the
200th in 1882. Hermann Dietrich's (later VOMAG) factory also
produced the 100th machine in 1882. The first shuttle embroidery or
steam embroidery machine went into operation in 1883, increasing
production by six to seven times compared to the previous machines.
The export could be increased significantly, so that on August 17th,
1887 the USA opened its own consulate in Plauen.
On December
5, 1889, the new hospital was opened at its current location in
Reichenbacher Strasse. In 1894 the Plauen tram went into operation.
In 1899 rotary machine construction began in what was then Vogtland
Machine Factory AG. The etched tip, introduced in 1883, only saw
increased sales from around 1888. In 1900, the top manufacturers in
Plauen received the Grand Prix at the Paris World Exhibition. This
boosted exports and the city of Plauen continued to grow very
quickly (see population development).
In 1893 the only
Protestant congregation in the city, the St. Johannis congregation,
was divided into five independent congregations. Catholics returned
to the city in the 19th century. This led to the foundation of the
parish Herz Jesu, which built its church in 1901. Initially, the
city's Catholics, like all Catholics in what was then the Kingdom of
Saxony, belonged to the Apostolic Vicariate based in Dresden, which
had been the responsible administrative district since 1743,
succeeding the diocese of Meissen, which was dissolved during the
Reformation. From this administrative district, the Diocese of
Meißen emerged again in 1921, since 1980 Diocese of Dresden-Meißen,
which today belongs to the Church Province of Berlin (Archdiocese of
Berlin). Plauen became the seat of a deanery, to which parishes
outside Plauen also belonged.
1900 to 1918
In 1904, Plauen
had more than 100,000 inhabitants and, after doubling the number of
inhabitants, had become a major city within ten years. In 1907
Plauen received the status of an exempt (district-free) city.
After the population peaked at 128,014 in 1912, it declined due
to the crisis in the textile industry that left many of the city's
residents unemployed and emigrated. With the outbreak of World War
I, lace production continued to decline. The industry could only be
converted to war production to a limited extent, so that there was
no improvement either.
Around 3,000 soldiers from Plauen were
killed in the First World War, and around 1,700 were taken prisoners
of war.
were made, an explosion that killed 292 people. In
the factory, which was an AEG incandescent lamp factory before the
outbreak of war, a fire broke out in the lower room shortly before
4.30 p.m., in which the powder was weighed and sewn into bags. The
fire spread so quickly that the explosion could not be prevented. A
cause was never determined. Almost all women worked in the factory,
163 of whom died. 177 injured were rescued; 129 of them died a
little later. Most of the victims were buried on July 24, 1918 in a
mass grave in the main cemetery. The mass grave and a memorial still
exist.
Weimar Republic, National Socialism and World War II
After the
First World War, the population increased again, but the pre-war
level was never reached again.
In October 1921, one of the
first local groups of the National Socialist German Workers' Party
(NSDAP) outside Bavaria was established in Plauen. The Hitler Youth
(HJ) also quickly organized itself in Plauen. Kurt Gruber from
Plauen was their first Reichsführer. According to the entry in the
district office, Plauen was founded on January 1, 1929, the Hitler
Youth Movement. V. With that the leadership of the Hitler Youth
passed to Plauen. With the subordination of the HJ to the SA, the
headquarters were moved from Plauen to Munich in 1931. Plauen's
importance was thus downgraded to a Großgau.
The world
economic crisis of 1929 hit the export-oriented Plauen economy
particularly hard. This was particularly noticeable in the
unemployment rate, at times the highest in Germany. As a result, the
NSDAP, which promised radical changes to the people, gained great
popularity in Plauen. Between 1924 and 1933 the headquarters of the
NSDAP Gauleitung was in Plauen. Plauen was also one of the first
German cities to give honorary citizenship to Adolf Hitler and Paul
von Hindenburg. Alfons Hitzler was NSDAP district leader in Plauen
for 20 years.
The city's synagogue, inaugurated in 1930 and
built in the Bauhaus style, was opened during the Reichspogromnacht
on 9/10. Destroyed by an arson attack in November 1938 and never
rebuilt afterwards. Most of the Jewish citizens left the city; the
rest were later deported and murdered. Some residents are remembered
with stumbling blocks that have been laid in Plauen since 2009.
Three subcamps of the Flossenbürg concentration camp were
located in Plauen between 1944 and 1945: Plauen subcamp (cotton
spinning mill), Plauen subcamp (industrial plants), Plauen subcamp
(Dr. Th. Horn).
During the Second World War, Plauen was
spared from attacks for a long time, but was badly destroyed towards
the end of the war. The first major air raid by the US Air Force
(USAAF) took place on September 12, 1944, followed by several USAAF
and RAF bombings from January to April 1945. The city experienced
the most momentous and last of a total of 14 air raids on April 10.
That night alone, around 900 people were killed in attacks by
British bombers. 1965 tons of explosives destroyed 164 hectares of
the urban area. After examining British documents that were secret
until 2009, earlier information (table) for the night attack of
April 10, 1945 was corrected: 304 Lancaster bombers, 6 Mosquito
high-speed bombers, 1,168 tons of bombs on April 10 and a total of
4,925 tons dropped on Plauen. Overall, the air raids in Plauen
claimed at least 2,340 lives (this number is too low: after the main
attack on April 10, 1945, only reported Plauen citizens were counted
as fatalities). The stated targets of the air raids were the Obere
Bahnhof, whereby the entire suburb of the station, the
infrastructure and the industrial facilities of VOMAG were
destroyed. However, there were sometimes large deviations between
the intended drop targets and the areas actually hit. This finding
is mainly based on the fact that the degree of destruction of
cultural sites was 80%, of living space 78%, of commercial buildings
70%, of administrative facilities 55% and of the transport network
48%. 91% of the gas network (150 km of pipelines) and around 200
kilometers of the water network were taken out of service. Urban
supply networks and urban traffic came to a complete standstill as a
result of the attacks. Repair costs of 4.5 million Reichsmarks were
incurred. Due to the destruction of important infrastructure such as
the station building and the Syratal Viaduct, rail traffic
collapsed. Automobile traffic was also severely hindered until the
partly buried roads were cleared. The Plauen tram was able to resume
operation after an eight-month break and the restoration of the
track system, while rail traffic was only possible on a single track
for the next few years. About 75% of the city was destroyed by the
attacks. There were 12,600 bomb craters in the city center. With a
bomb load of 185.4 t / km² Plauen was one of the most heavily
damaged cities in Germany (more than e.g. Dresden with about 60%).
On April 16, 1945 Plauen was occupied without a fight by the
347th US Infantry Regiment advancing from the west. During the
American occupation, dismantling took place, mainly of cutting-edge
technology (e.g. VOMAG precision boring mills), construction
documents were confiscated. The most capable skilled workers and
engineers were brought into the American zone of occupation. The
Americans tried to rebuild a functioning civil administration as
quickly as possible, resorting to experts dismissed after 1933.
According to the agreements of the Yalta Conference, the Americans
withdrew from West Saxony on June 30, 1945, and from July 1 the
Soviets took possession of the rest of the zone of occupation
assigned to them.
SBZ and GDR times
During the Soviet
occupation, many industrial plants were dismantled as reparations
and brought to the Soviet Union. From 1946 the expropriation and
nationalization of the large companies began. State-owned companies
were founded and land reform was carried out.
1950 began to
counteract the housing shortage caused by the severe destruction. In
order to create new living space quickly and in a cost-saving
manner, the new residential buildings were built from the 1960s
onwards in the panel construction, which was considered unsightly
but popular due to the central heating. The Chrieschwitz district,
the Mammen area and the area around the upper station are
particularly characterized by this type of construction.
After the war, the first Plauen lace festival took place in 1955,
which is one of the city's cultural highlights every year. In 1974
the city of Plauen celebrated 750 years of existence. There is no
longer any document about the granting of city rights, but another
document documents that Plauen was designated a city as early as
1224. Accordingly, the appointment to the city must have been made
before 1224. In this way, the city anniversary could be combined
with 25 years of the GDR, which the government of the time attached
great importance to.
The location around 25 kilometers north
of the inner-German border was one of the reasons that Plauen's
development continued to stagnate after 1945. The number of
residents decreased continuously. Plauen housed a strong garrison of
the Soviet Army on the Cold War front line, as well as facilities of
the GDR border troops such as the officers' college. In Plauen there
were a few large companies like Plamag that were also successful
abroad. However, the city was unable to regain its former economic
importance during the GDR era.
The turning point and peaceful
revolution in Plauen
In the local elections on May 7, 1989, more
election observers took part, mainly from those around the church.
Obvious election frauds were documented and submissions made.
However, this did not change anything in the conduct of the
leadership. When, on the night of October 4th to 5th, 1989, trains
carrying embassy refugees from Prague drove through Plauen towards
Hof for the second time, several people tried to jump up. However,
the station and the adjacent tracks were cordoned off on a large
scale.
On October 5th, the Plauen New Forum was supposed to be founded
in the Markuskirche, which was still forbidden at that time.
However, since word of this had got around and a large crowd
appeared in which one suspected Stasi employees as well, a peace
prayer was spontaneously scheduled, which had to be repeated because
of the crowd. To mark the 40th anniversary of the republic on
October 7, 1989, typewritten notes and word of mouth were used to
call for a demonstration in the city center. The Stasi knew about
it, but completely underestimated the situation. Around 3 p.m.,
thousands of people gathered on the Theaterplatz and
Otto-Grotewohl-Platz (tunnel) without actually knowing what would
happen. The police tried to use water cannons (due to the lack of
their own vehicles, those of the volunteer fire brigade were used)
and a helicopter to break up the crowd and to clear the place; which
she did not succeed. At around 4:15 p.m., a demonstration march
formed, which initially moved in the direction of Bahnhofstrasse and
then returned to the town hall at around 5:30 p.m. Banners with
slogans such as “We need reforms”, “For reforms and freedom of
travel against mass exodus - especially peace” or “Freedom of travel
- freedom of expression - freedom of the press” were carried along.
There were shouts in front of the town hall demanding that the mayor
Norbert Martin come out to talk to him. Thanks to the level-headed
commitment of Superintendent Thomas Küttler, who mediated between
the town hall / police and the demonstrators, the demonstration
remained peaceful and slowly broke up with the cry “We'll be back”
around 6 p.m. after it had been decided to demonstrate again the
following Saturday , and there should also be talks between Plauen's
citizens and the mayor. From this point on, demonstrations took
place in Plauen every Saturday until the first free elections on
March 18, 1990. The Saturday demonstrations, which mostly took the
same route past the Stasi headquarters and the SED district office,
also included people from the surrounding area and some delegations
from the twin town of Hof. "It was the first time that the citizens
of the GDR came together without" instructions from above "and
expressed their united will against the system in the GDR". (Rolf
Schwanitz) “Plauen was the first East German city to express a
united will to turn around; it was the only one in which the
upheaval in East Germany was a matter of the masses from the start.
On October 12, 1989, the first scheduled talks between the mayor of
the city and 25 Plauen citizens took place. The citizen council led
by Superintendent Küttler was later also referred to as the Group of
20 - based on the Dresden Group of 20.
On December 15, 1989,
10,000 employees in Plauen stopped working for two hours to stand up
for German unity. That was the biggest strike in this development
phase in the GDR.
In view of the pioneering role that Plauen
played during the fall of the Berlin Wall, October 7th as a communal
day of remembrance became Democracy Day. explained. In addition, on
October 7, 2010, the so-called Wende monument, designed by Peter
Luban, was inaugurated diagonally across from the New Town Hall. The
construction costs of 60,000 euros were financed entirely through
donations.
The further development since 1991
After the
municipal gallery e.o.plauen was opened on October 1, 1993 with an
Erich-Ohser exhibition, the e.o.-Plauen-Gesellschaft e. V. founded.
Willi Daume was elected as its first president. From September 5 to
7, 1997, the Day of the Saxons took place in Plauen with 380,000
visitors. After a referendum in 1999, a shopping center, the
Stadt-Galerie, was built in the city center in 2001. The
Lohmühlenanlage, a green area, was built on. In the course of this
construction work, the central tram stop tunnel was completely
renewed and partially relocated. Critics complain that the building
of the city gallery devalued the previous shopping street,
Bahnhofstrasse, and that since then many shops on Bahnhofstrasse
have either moved to the city gallery or have had to close. In 2002
the city received a first prize for the "integrated urban
development program" (InSEK) from the Federal Ministry of Transport,
Building and Housing. In 2003 and 2008 the city was named
municipality of the year.
Plauen fought intensely against plans by the Saxon Ministry of
the Interior to take the city away from the city as part of the
district reform, which it had had since 1907. On April 22, 2008, the
Saxon Constitutional Court rejected the preliminary injunction
requested by the City of Plauen to suspend the district reform.
Plauen was reintegrated into the Vogtlandkreis as a district town on
August 1st, 2008.
On March 1, 2010 Plauen joined the Mayors
for Peace initiative, an international non-governmental organization
that is mainly committed to nuclear disarmament. The city
representatives also want to promote this initiative to the partner
cities. At the city council meeting on May 27, 2010, it was decided
to join the Council of European Municipalities and Regions. As part
of the celebrations for the Day of German Unity, Mayor Oberdorfer
received the Unity Prize (special prize from the jury) from the
Federal Agency for Civic Education on October 3, 2011 on behalf of
the city of Plauen. The reason given was: "With the special prize of
the jury for the city of Plauen, the jury wants to remember the
civil courage of the local population, who did not let the Stasi,
the people's police and water cannons prevent them from doing so on
October 7, 1989, the national holiday of the GDR. to demonstrate for
an end to the SED dictatorship. In the public eye, the people of
Plauen were overshadowed by Leipzig and Berlin, but they marked the
turning point in the dramatic autumn of the revolution of 1989. “On
November 7, 2011, the city received the European Energy Award.
Plauen lies in the hill country of the Central Vogtland. The
urban area is therefore characterized by the typical, mostly wooded
hilltops, also called Pöhle. It extends over around 102 km² (as of
December 2002). In the north-south direction, the simplified
diamond-shaped floor plan extends to around 16 km and in the
east-west direction to around 12 km.
The mean height of 412 m
above sea level. NN is a very theoretical value in Plauen, because
the lowest point is the Elstersohle at 305 meters (located in the
district of Röttis), the highest mountain is the wooded Culmberg at
525 meters (in the southern district of Oberlosa). Plauen's local
mountain is the 507 meter high Kemmler with a Bismarck tower.
Plauen is located in the valley and on the banks of the White
Elster. In the area of the confluence of the Syra the valley
widens to a basin with the city center. The White Elster flows from
the southwest through the village of Straßberg into the original
Plauen city area. Around the city center, it swings north, flows
through the Chrieschwitz district and then forms the eastern border
of the city area. She divides it into two roughly equal areas.
While the original urban area, i.e. the inner city, is a dense
urban residential or mixed area, the localities that were
incorporated from 1994 to 1999 are particularly characterized by the
high proportion (55%) of agricultural land. This is the highest
value in comparison with the four next largest cities in Saxony.
Plauen is the only one of these cities to have a purely rural
outskirts. Plauen is criss-crossed by many green spaces; especially
in the north and south there are extensive forest areas. The forest
share is 18%, after Dresden with 21%, the second largest of the
large Saxon cities.
The hilly surrounding area is covered in
roughly equal proportions by fields, meadows and forests. The two
large reservoirs Pöhl (northeast) and Pirk (south), which are also
used as recreational areas, are located a short distance from the
city.
Geologically, Plauen lies in the Vogtland Mulde (Vogtland
Synklinorium). Most of the city is in the main hollow, the
Kauschwitz district in a foothill of the Mehltheuerer Kulmmulde. The
main hollow is strongly structured by numerous diabase tops, the
Kulm hollow appears rather even.
The urban area is
geologically extremely complex. The many different rocks are
assigned to several formations of the Paleozoic Era. The structure
was influenced mainly in the time of the Variski mountain formation.
Different rock layers are shifted against each other, discarded and
eroded.
The wide Kerbsohlental of the Elster divides the city
into a north and a south part. The northern part rises relatively
steeply in the city center, starting from the Elster sole. A diabase
ridge lifts out there, which can be seen as a steep slope at the
level of the former castle. The area then changes into rather
flatter formations, which mainly consist of various clay and alum
schists from the Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian. Due to a broad
fault, these shale sequences are demarcated from the diabase rocks
adjoining to the west and north-west. The disturbance extends from
the Friedensbrücke over the Bärenstein-Osthang, the Rähnisberg to
the Karolastraße and then runs northeast to the Pietzschebach. It
appears as a zone of strongly decomposed diabase and slate, while
the areas to the west of the fault (Haselbrunn, Neundorf, Straßberg)
are characterized by various diabase rocks such as tuffs, breccias
and conglomerates.
The southern part of the city is
characterized by slate of the Ordovician and Devonian, which stretch
as a wide strip from Reusa to Thiergarten. In the far south is the
diabase area of the Kemmler and the Black Wood. In the east and
south suburbs there are still some gravel deposits that are
considered to be young river deposits of the White Elster.
The Vogtland and thus Plauen are located in one of the most
seismically active areas in Germany. The epicentres of the swarm
quake are mostly located in the vicinity of geological faults. In
most cases, however, the intensity is below three on the Richter
scale, which means that the tremors are barely noticeable.
In Plauen and Vogtland, the climate of the warm, temperate, humid
west wind zone of Central Europe with changeable weather prevails.
Compared to regions further west of Germany, continental influences
(warmer summers, colder winters) can be observed. Due to the
influence of the surrounding low mountain ranges, the weather in the
Vogtland is less wind and less precipitation than in other regions
of Germany with a comparable altitude. The average air temperature
in Plauen is 7.5 ° C, with the warmest months being July and August
with average temperatures of around 16 ° C. In the Plauen area there
are an average of 26 to 30 summer days (≥ 25 ° C) per year with an
average sunshine duration of 1450 to 1500 hours per year. The
average annual rainfall in Plauen is 582 millimeters. This
represents a minimum in the Vogtland, due to the fact that the city
lies in the lee of the upstream low mountain range, the air
accumulates in the Western Ore Mountains and the clouds there rain
down. Snowfalls are normal from November to April, although a
blanket of snow does not always form. It rarely snows in October or
even in May. In Plauen, south-westerly to southerly wind directions
are predominant, whereby so-called "Bohemian winds", i.e. cold air
outflows from the Bohemian Basin, can occur in the cold season. The
average wind speed is around 3 to 4 m / s.
City structure
With over 102 square kilometers, the city has an urban area similar
to Paris with around 105 square kilometers. Plauen consists of 39
districts in 23 districts, which are divided into the five urban
areas center, north, east, south and west. Each urban area consists
of up to eleven districts. The districts that were incorporated into
Plauen in 1996 and 1999 are also localities according to the Saxon
municipal code. The localities were introduced by the main statute
of the city of Plauen and each have a local council elected by the
population, which has between five and nine members depending on the
number of inhabitants. The mayor is the chairman of the local
council. Some of the localities also have their own local
administration.