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Founding
Founding of Plauen
Greater district town and district capital, Vogtland Rural District, Saxony, Germany
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Founding
Greater district town and district capital, Vogtland Rural District, Saxony, Germany
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Plauen (German pronunciation: [ˈplaʊən] ⓘ PLOW-en; 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 ("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.
Plauen was founded by Polabian Slavs in the 12th century as "Plawe" and was passed to the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1327. The town was captured by the Archbishop of Magdeburg, Lippold von Bredow, in 1384. In 1466, it was passed to Albertine Saxony and later in 1569 to the Electorate of Saxony. Plauen became incorporated into the Kingdom of Saxony in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars, and in 1871 it became part of the German Empire.
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, and three subcamps of the Flossenbürg concentration camp. Five hundred women, mostly Polish, but also Russian, Italian, French, Yugoslavian and Croatian, were imprisoned and used as forced labour in the first two subcamps, and 50 men from various countries were imprisoned in the third subcamp. In June 1943, the Stalag 366 prisoner-of-war camp was relocated from Kremenchuk to Plauen, and then dissolved in July 1943. 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 1 July 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 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 Kristallnacht.
Plauen becoming a Nazi stronghold, attacks against the Jewish community were frequent in the 1920s. Physically labelled Jews are documented from 1932. 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 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.
The first freely elected mayor after German reunification was Rolf Magerkord 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 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.
The most recent city council election was held on 9 June 2024, and the results were as follows:
Plauen (Vogtland) Oberer Bahnhof lies on the Leipzig–Hof line. The section of this line through Plauen is part of the Saxon-Franconian trunk line running between Nürnberg, Hof, Plauen, Zwickau, Chemnitz and Dresden. The city had another station, Plauen (Vogtland) Unterer station (now defunct), on the Elster Valley Railway. There is a plan to rename the Oberer (Upper) station into Plauen Hauptbahnhof (Main Station).
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 city centre, the central Plauen-Tunnel stop, to the surrounding areas and the upper railway station (Oberer Bahnhof).
Plauen is home to a University of Applied Sciences with about 300 students and a DIPLOMA Fachhochschule.
The town is served by Plauen (Vogtland) Oberer Bahnhof with direct train routes to city of Dresden and other towns such as Hof and Reichenbach im Vogtland.
Hof–Plauen Airport is located 46 km (29 mi) south west. However, there are no schedule flights to/from the airport. The nearest airports to the town are:
Plauen is twinned with:
The urban district of Jößnitz is twinned with Heilsbronn, Germany.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Plauen”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.