Rittersgrün is a district of the municipality of Breitenbrunn/Erzgeb in the Erzgebirgskreis in Saxony, Germany. The scattered settlement with around 1600 inhabitants grew up around several hammer mills, which operated on the course of the Pöhlwasser from the 15th to the 19th century and were supplied with ore from numerous surrounding mines. Due to its location on an important Ore Mountain pass, the settlement was repeatedly plundered by passing mercenaries during the Thirty Years' War. After the decline of the hammer mill industry in the middle of the 19th century, the village's economy was dominated by cardboard and sawmills. In 2007, Rittersgrün was incorporated into Breitenbrunn/Erzgeb. Today, Rittersgrün is primarily known as an excursion and winter sports resort. The main attractions include the Saxon Narrow Gauge Railway Museum and a well-developed network of hiking trails.
Geography
Geographical location Rittersgrün stretches from northwest to southeast in the Pöhlwasser valley, around seven kilometers south of the large district town of Schwarzenberg, at an altitude of up to 820 meters. Situated on the Rittersgrüner Pass, which has been actively used since the 16th century, the settlement is flanked to the west by the 792-metre-high Hirtenberg and the Kohlung to the south, and to the east by the 700-metre-high Sonnenberg and the 836-metre-high Ochsenkopf. State road 271 runs through the village from Raschau to Oberwiesenthal, into which a connecting road from Breitenbrunn, around 2.5 kilometers away, joins in the village. The border to the Czech Republic runs to the south of the village, over which there are border crossings for skiers, pedestrians and cyclists.
Settlement form Rittersgrün is not one of the woodland villages typical of the Ore Mountains, as the rocky subsoil hardly allowed for agriculture. The starting point for the settlement of the valley section was the hammer mills located on the Pöhlwasser. While the houses on the left side of the river are mostly grouped along the S 271, the scattered settlement on the Hammerberg above the former Rothenhammer forms the settlement core on the opposite side.
Community structure The political municipality of Rittersgrün was only created in 1856 through the merger of the municipalities of Oberrittersgrün, Unterrittersgrün and Rothenhammer Rittersgrün in the Schwarzenberg court office. The Ehrenzipfel group of houses, which probably originated in the 17th century, has always belonged to Rittersgrün. In 1921, the previously independent estate district of Arnoldshammer became part of Rittersgrün. Oberglobenstein had already been incorporated in the middle of the 19th century, and in 1978 the whole of Globenstein became part of Rittersgrün. This was followed in 1994 by Tellerhäuser with the district of Zweiback. Today, only Rittersgrün and Tellerhäuser are designated as districts of Breitenbrunn under municipal law.
Geology Rittersgrün is located in the southwest of the Paleozoic Ore Mountains, a few kilometers from the highest peak in Saxony, the Fichtelberg. The ore deposits around Rittersgrün formed the basis for the mining development of the municipality. Magnetite skarns with tin content and non-ferrous magnetite skarns in andalusite-bearing muscovite schists were mined in the pits near Ober- and Niederglobenstein. Magnetic iron ore, zinc blende and limestone were mined in a wooded area of the Hirtenberg. The slope of the Hirtenberg is covered with wooded and meadow-covered weathered soils of light-colored mica schist. In the Rothen-Adler-Stollen in the south-eastern area of the settlement known as Hammerberg above the Rothenhammer, red ironstone was mined from the original magnetic ironstone; pyroxene, calcite, fluorspar and brown spar were also found.http://www.smul.sachsen.de/umwelt/download/umweltstatus/6_Hochwasserentstehungsgebiete_in_Sachsen_-_LfULG.pdf (Link not available) Sylvia Walther (Saxon State Office for Environment, Agriculture and Geology): Hochwasserentstehungsgebiete in Sachsen – ein Instrument für den Hochwasserschutz in Sachsen Massive mica schist rocks form the summit of the Ochsenkopf. The Sonnenberg was built on a non-ferrous metal skarn with magnetite and tin content. The ore minerals included zinc blende, chalcopyrite, magnetic pyrites and magnetic iron ore.
Climate Due to its altitude, the temperatures in Rittersgrün are below those of the lower-lying municipalities in the surrounding area all year round. In the winter months, the higher areas of Rittersgrün are often covered in snow for long periods. The average annual precipitation of 1024.4 mm is roughly on a par with Oberwiesenthal (1058.7 mm), significantly higher than in the neighboring town of Schwarzenberg (871.3 mm) and considerably higher than in the major Saxon cities of Dresden (583.7 mm) and Leipzig (584.6 mm).Deutscher Wetterdienst: Mittelwerte des Niederschlags für den Zeitraum 1961–1990 (.zip file; 349 kB) (Memento from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive), retrieved on May 10, 2009. Due to the dry air in the area surrounded by dense forest, Rittersgrün was a high-altitude climatic health resort in the first half of the 20th century. The flood of the century in August 2002, when the Pöhlwasser overflowed its banks in many places, caused considerable damage. Rittersgrün is listed by the Saxon State Office for the Environment, Agriculture and Geology as part of a black water flooding area characterized by low water infiltration, low water retention, high terrain gradients, heavy rainfall and snowmelt. Several trees were uprooted and vehicles damaged in a tornado that passed through the Pöhlwasser valley from Rittersgrün to Pöhla on August 13, 2003.Michel Oelschlägel: 14. August 2003 Superzelle (Frontgewitter.de), retrieved on May 10, 2009. Another tornado at the end of July 2005 caused considerable breakage damage in a forest area near Tellerhäuser, which resulted in the clearing of the affected area.
History
Hammer mills as the basis for settlement
In the Middle Ages, the Pöhlwasser formed the border between the Schwarzenberg dominion and the estates of the Lords of Schönburg to the east. Along the stream was the Rittersgrüner Pass, which crossed the Ore Mountains ridge and, for chroniclers, was an indication of early settlement in the area.Frank Siegel: 750 Jahre Rittersgrün. Programm und Information. Aue 2001. The 750th anniversary of Rittersgrün was celebrated in 2000. It is doubtful that a settlement actually existed in the area of today's municipality as early as the 13th century and cannot be proven. The first settlement of the later Rittersgrün is probably closely linked to the construction of a hammer mill on the Pöhlwasser in the 15th century. In 1748, Johann Paul Oettel reported that "Jacob Kleinhempels, who without fault in 1440, worked on the hammer mill at Rittersgrün".Johann Paul Oettel: Alte und neue Historie der Königl. Pohln. und Churfürstl. Sächßl. freyen Berg-Stadt Eybenstock, in Meißnischen Ober-Erz-Gebürge. Schneeberg, Fulden, 1748, S. 293 It is not known whether this hammer mill and the associated buildings already had a name. It was not until 1534 that Rittersgrün was mentioned in a tax list of the Schwarzenberg office as the name of the first house on the left side of the Pöhlwasser. Where the name Rittersgrün came from and whether it was possibly used for the right-hand side of the stream cannot be determined due to the poor source situation. A few years later, two new hammer mills were built on the right bank of the Pöhlwasser. Hans Schwarz, the mayor of Annaberg, had a "new hammer, on the Behlwasser with a Renwergk" built on the site of today's church.Schönburgisches Erbbuch de ao. 1559 (State Archives Chemnitz, District Tax Collection Annaberg, Order 30346, No. 143) The statement "Undt seint daruber drey wüste Hammerstede und darunter auch eine" suggests that a lively iron processing operation was already underway beforehand. Hans Kleinhempel's hammer was built a little further downstream, presumably on the site of Jakob Kleinhempel's hammer mill mentioned by Oettel.Jonny Hielscher: „Neue Erkenntnisse zu alten Hammerwerken“, in: Amtsblatt der Gemeinde Breitenbrunn/Erzgebirge, Nr. 6/2009, S. 15f. Named Arnoldshammer after a later owner, it remained an independent estate district until the 20th century. At the end of the 16th century, the hammer master Nikolaus Klinger moved a blast furnace to Rittersgrün and thus formed the basis of another hammer mill, which was named the Schmertzingischer Hammer after his son-in-law and successor Rudolph von Schmertzing.
It can be assumed that the first settlers came to Rittersgrün to work in the hammers and settled in their vicinity. An earlier settlement in the area is unlikely, as the harsh climate and rocky subsoil hardly allowed for agriculture and therefore offered neither a livelihood nor an attraction. While little is known about the early history of the right bank of the Pöhlwasser, the settlement on the opposite side of the river is better documented. The first settler to settle on the area to the left of the Pöhlwasser, which is still referred to today as the Amtsseite in allusion to its affiliation to the former Amt Schwarzenberg, was Nisius Lebe from Breitenbrunn, who built his house there in 1534. In 1536, a tax list states "Rittersgrun is a Heuslen". By 1560, eleven houses had already been built and a small settlement had developed.Gerhard Lang: Rittersgrün im Wandel der Zeit. Geiger-Verlag, Horb am Neckar 1993, p. 6ff.
Peak of iron processing in the 17th century At the beginning of the 17th century, iron processing in Rittersgrün had reached its peak. An Öder sheet from around 1610 mentions the following facilities downstream: "Nicol Klingers Erben Zehnhammer" above the confluence of the Mückenbach and Pöhlwasser rivers, "der Klingerische Erben hohe ofen" on the site of the later Schmertzing'schen Hammer, "Paul Eschers hohe ofen" on the site of the later Junghans und Söhne factory, "Paul Eschers Hammer" on the site of today's church and, as the presumed first settlement nucleus, "Caspar Arnolts Hammer". In 1617, Escher's hammer was severely damaged by water and fire and destroyed in 1633 by the imperial troops of General Heinrich von Holk, who used the Rittersgrün Pass as a route from Bohemia to Saxony and back, as were all the iron processing plants in Rittersgrün. While the hammer mills of Arnold and von Schmertzing were rebuilt and put back into operation, the Escher hammer remained deserted. In August 1661, a flood again caused severe damage to the two remaining hammer mills. In 1670, Hannibal von Schmertzing obtained permission to build 17 houses for his workers and hereditary jurisdiction over the settlement. A few decades later, the number of buildings on the Hammerberg above Schmertzing's hammer mill had more than doubled. The rapid increase in population, which was due not least to exiles from neighboring Bohemia as a result of the Counter-Reformation there, prompted the construction of Rittersgrün's own church towards the end of the 17th century.
Diseases, war and hunger in the 18th century