Falkenau

Falkenau is a village and a former municipality in the district of Mittelsachsen, in Saxony, Germany. Located in the Ore Mountain Basin, the village stands on the shores of the river Flöha.

Falkenau and its sole district Hetzdorf is located north of Augustusburg, east of Flöha and west of Oederan. On 1 October 2011, Falkenau joined the town of Flöha.

History
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 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, with only 20 more in 1688.

Falkenau reached its highest peak of population in the year 1950 with a total of 2921 people. The population has slowly declined since then.


 * Source: Official Statistical Office of the Free State of Saxony, Date: 30. Juni 2011

Languages

 * Standard German
 * a variety of Upper Saxon German

Roads
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.

Public transport
The village has two small train stations and is connected by one bus line to Chemnitz. The upper station Falkenau (Sachs) Süd connects the village to Dresden, Chemnitz, and Freiberg (Dresden–Werdau railway). The lower station Falkenau (Sachs) HP connects to Chemnitz and Olbernhau (Pockau-Lengefeld–Neuhausen railway). Until 1968, the socalled Lößnitz Valley railway branched off to Großwaltersdorf in the neighbouring district of Hetzdorf.

Bridges

 * 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".

The school, built 1913, was designed by the Saxonian architect Curt Herfurth.

Sports

 * TSV 1888 Falkenau (football, table tennis, athletics, volleyball)
 * Skiclub Falkenau e. V. (skiing)
 * Angelverein Falkenau e. V. (fishing)

Sons and daughters of Falkenau

 * Karl Nendel (* 1933 in Falkenau; † 2019 in Frankfurt (Oder)), engineer in microelectronics

Active in Falkenau

 * Carl Ludwig Beaumont (* 1791, † 3. March 1840 in Falkenau), French soldier in the Napoleon army and entrepeneur in textile industry in Falkenau
 * Adolf Gottlieb Fiedler (* 1771 in Dresden, † 2. August 1850), entrepeneur in Saxony and Poland
 * Max Hauschild (* 28. December 1804 in Dresden, † 20. July 1877 in Dresden), Saxonian entrepeneur in textile industry and mechanical engineering
 * Abraham Kluge († 1654), Captain of a Dragoon Unit during the Thirty Years' War
 * Georg Liebermann (* 5. July 1844 in Berlin; † 15. April 1926 in Berlin), German philantropist and entrepeneur in textile industry and mechanical engineering, brother of the artist Max Liebermann