Falkenau is a village and a former municipality in the district of Mittelsachsen, in Saxony, Germany. On 1 October 2011, Falkenau joined the town of Flöha.[1]
Geography
Location
Located in the Ore Mountain Basin, the village of Falkenau stands on the shores of the river Flöha.
Until the middle of the 12th century, the region lay in the primeval forest known as the Miriquidi, which covered large parts of what is now southern Saxony and stretched across the ridge of the Ore Mountains to northern Bohemia.
Falkenau was first mentioned in 1378 in a tax register of the socalled "Castrum Schellenberg" district, but the first settlers probably arrived as early as the late 12th century in the course of the Medieval Ostsiedlung. The settlers founded the village as Waldhufendorf with 15 farms[2] arranged along both sides of the river. The oldest family names of these farmers were Richter (1546), Rudolph (1563), Ruttluff (1563), Schubert (1563), Kunz (1564), Teufel (1566), Wächtler (1567), Hartwig (1580), Förster (1583), Aßmann (1586), Ranfeld (1585), Becker (1585), Schnorr (1589), Naumann (1599), Fintzel (1593), and Barthel (1595).
Small ore mining endeavours were undertaken in the northern forests of Falkenau along the Zechengrundbach with a first phase during the late 16th century and a second one from 1674 till 1842.
Since the beginning of the 19th century and during the 20th century, the village was a small, but supraregional centre of the textile industry with business connections to major cities in Germany and Europe.
Population
Falkenau had a population of around 140 people during the mid-16th century,[3] with only 20 more in 1688.[4]
Falkenau reached its highest peak of population in the year 1950 with a total of 2921 people. The population has slowly declined since then.
1980 - 1989
1980
1981
1982: 2153
1983: 2154
1984: 2160
1985: 2135
1986: 2171
1987: 2154
1988: 2139
1989: 2078
1990 - 1999
1990: 2060
1991: 2025
1992: 2024
1993: 2068
1994: 2062
1995: 2133
1996: 2238
1997: 2272
1998: 2233
1999: 2228
2000 - 2009
2000: 2218
2001: 2204
2002: 2134
2003: 2127
2004: 2100
2005: 2046
2006: 2040
2007: 2008
2008: 1966
2009: 1957
2010 - 2019
2010: 1951
6/2011: 1902
Source: Official Statistical Office of the Free State of Saxony, Date: 30. Juni 2011
Falkenau is connected to the Bundestraße 173 (B173). Between Hof and Zwickau, the course of this road largely corresponds to the old Via Imperii. Further on to Dresden, it follows the historic Frankenstraße, which leads eastwards via Chemnitz, Oederan, and Freiberg, towards Upper Lusatia and on to Silesia.
Hetzdorfer Viaduct, a 43 metre high and 328 metre long former railway bridge built 1866-1868. It is now part of a hiking trail.
Culture and sights
In 1722, the post office of Electoral Saxony erected on behalf of Augustus II the Strong a numbered milestone along the historic Frankenstraße. The quarter milestone rests on a low plinth and consists of a rectangular ca 1.7 metres high slab. It only bears the monogram ‘AR’, a post horn, the year of manufacture and, on the narrow side the odd row number "25".[5]
The school, built 1913, was designed by the Saxonian architect Curt Herfurth.
Georg Liebermann (* 5. July 1844 in Berlin; † 15. April 1926 in Berlin), German philanthropist and entrepreneur in textile industry and mechanical engineering, brother of the artist Max Liebermann
Bibliography
In German
Geographisches Institut, Arbeitsgruppe Heimatforschung (1977). Das mittlere Zschopaugebiet : Ergebnisse der heimatkundlichen Bestandsaufnahme in den Gebieten von Flöha - Augustusburg und Zschopau. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. pp. 79–82.
H. Hänsch (2002). 625 Jahre Falkenau. Beiträge zur Geschichte. Falkenau i. Sa.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
H. Seifert (1938). Die Ortsgeschichte des Dorfes Falkenau in Sachsen. Flöha i. Sa.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
.jpg)
