Raschau

Raschau is a former municipality in the district of Erzgebirgskreis in Saxony, Germany. Since 1 January 2008, Raschau and Markersbach have formed the municipality Raschau-Markersbach.

Geography

Location

Raschau is 3.5 kilometres east of the town of Schwarzenberg in the valley of the river Mittweida, which is also known as the Raschauer Grund.
The publisher August Schumann described the community's location in 1822 thus:
“It lies, mostly surrounded by the Schwarzenberg Amt area, 2 hours south-southeast of Grünhayn, to hours east-southeast of Schwarzenberg, to 2 hours west-southwest 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, 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 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 monks 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, 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 worked, besides silver, bismuth and cobalt ores, also gravel, which served as the basis for sulphur and vitriolic acid making. The Seegen Gottes Lode brought up silver and tin ores.

Neighbouring communities

Bordering communities are, in the north, Langenberg, in the east Markersbach, in the south Pöhla and in the southwest Schwarzenberg's constituent community of Grünstädtel.

History

Historic overview

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. 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.

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 Markersbach 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 “” 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.

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 Freiberg 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 died. 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

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 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 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.

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. 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. This has become a trend, and in the middle term, the population's average age is set to rise markedly.

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 factory, a paper covering factory, a machine factory, a locksmith’s shop and an engine works.