You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (January 2022) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
View a machine-translated version of the German article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Plauen]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Plauen}} to the talk page.
Plauen (German pronunciation:[ˈplaʊən];[3][4]Upper Sorbian: Pławno; Czech: Plavno) is a town in Saxony, Germany with a population of around 65,000. It is Saxony's 5th most populated city after Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz and Zwickau, the second-largest city of the Vogtland after Gera, as well as the largest city in the Saxon Vogtland region (Sächsisches Vogtland).
The city lies on the upper reaches of the White Elster River, a tributary of the Saale, in the Central Vogtlandian Hill Country. Plauen is the southwesternmost city of a string of cities sitting in the densely populated foreland of the Elster and Ore Mountains, stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast. It is the county seat of the Vogtland District. Plauen directly borders Greiz in Thuringia to the north, and it is also situated near the Saxon border with Bavaria (Franconia) and the Czech Republic (Bohemia).
Plauen and the surrounding Saxon Vogtland are known as the historic center of the German embroidery and lace industry, and the products of the region are protected under the label Plauener Spitze [de] ("Plauen Lace"). The Elster Viaduct (Elstertalbrücke), spanning the valley of the White Elster between Plauen and Pöhl, is the second-largest bridge built out of bricks in the world, after the Göltzsch Viaduct.
Despite its location in Saxony the regional Vogtlandian dialect spoken in Plauen is a variety of East Franconian (with Saxon influences) related to the dialects of neighbouring Franconia in Bavaria. The name of the city as well as the names of many of its neighborhoods and boroughs are of Slavic origin.
In the late-19th century, Plauen became a centre of textile manufacturing, specializing in Chemical lace, called Plauen lace. Around 1910, Plauen, as an industrial 'boomtown' of the region, reached its population peak (1910 census: 121,000, 1912: 128,000). Plauen's population, however, has shrunk dramatically since the Second World War (1939: 111,000 inhabitants).
In the 1930s, Plauen hosted the first chapter of the Nazi Party outside of Bavaria.
During the war, the Nazis operated a prison in the town,[5] and three subcamps of the Flossenbürg concentration camp. 500 women, mostly Polish, but also Russian, Italian, French, Yugoslavian and Croatian, were imprisoned and used as forced labour in the first two subcamps,[6][7] and 50 men from various countries were imprisoned in the third subcamp.[8] It was occupied by American troops on 16 April 1945 but was left to Red Army on 1 July 1945. On 15 December 1945, the city issued 7 semi-postal postage stamps of its own to raise money for reconstruction.
From 1945 onwards, Plauen fell into the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, which later became the German Democratic Republic (1949–1990). Plauen hosted a large Red Army occupation garrison and, in the last years of the GDR (DDR), an officer school of the Border Guards ("Grenztruppen der DDR"). The first mass demonstration against the communist regime in the GDR began in Plauen on 7 October 1989; this was the beginning of a series of mass demonstrations across the country and ultimately led to the re-unification of Germany in 1990.
The exposé Fast Food Nation gives special mention to Plauen as the first city of the GDR to have a McDonald's restaurant following the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
As part of Saxony's local government reform of July 1st 2008, Plauen lost its status as a district-free city and was integrated into the Vogtlandkreis district.
The Jewish community of Plauen dates back to the early 14th century[9] and numbered several hundred between the two world wars. A reform-Jewish, bauhaus-style synagogue was opened in 1930, only to be demolished in 1938 during the Krystallnacht.
Plauen becoming a Nazi stronghold, attacks against the Jewish community were frequent in the 1920s.[10] Physically labelled Jews are documented from 1932.[11] Most of the Jewish population either left or was killed during The Holocaust.
Today, no Jewish community exists in Plauen. The city of Plauen maintains a few sites in the city to commemorate past Jewish life in Plauen, such as the Jewish Cemetery.
A 3D-model of the Jewish Synagogue of Plauen was designed by Prof. Marc Grellert and his team from the TU Darmstadt as a part of his project to 3D-design German synagogues that were demolished before, during and after WW2.[12]
Politics
The first freely elected mayor after German reunification was Rolf Magerkord [de] of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), who served from 1990 to 2000. The mayor was originally chosen by the city council, but since 1994 has been directly elected. Ralf Oberdorfer [de] of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) was mayor between 2000 and 2021. The most recent mayoral election was held in two rounds on 13 June and 4 July 2021, in which Steffen Zenner (CDU) was elected.[1]
Vogtlandbahn (Vogtland Railway), a regional train company, operates services from Plauen to Hof, Werdau, Chemnitz, Zwickau, Falkenstein and Adorf within Germany and Cheb in the Czech Republic. At these stations, there are other Vogtlandbahn services to Munich, Regensburg, Marktredwitz, Dresden and Leipzig within Germany and Karlovy Vary and Prague in the Czech Republic. A Vogtlandbahn Express Bus service runs between Plauen and Berlin Schönefeld Airport and Zoological Garden.
The Plauen Straßenbahn is a tram system with 6 lines connecting the center of city, the central Plauen-Tunnel stop, to the surrounding areas and the upper railway station (Oberer Bahnhof).
_Oberer_Bahnhof.jpg)
