Portal:East Germany/Article of the month/January



The Ore Mountains in Central Europe have formed a natural border between Saxony and Bohemia for around 800 years, from the 12th to the 20th centuries. During the Cold War, the border between East Germany and Czechoslovakia ran just north of the main crest of the mountain range. The highest peaks are the Klínovec (German: Keilberg), which rises to 1244 m above sea level and the Fichtelberg (1215 m).

The area played an important role in contributing Bronze Age ore, and as the setting of the earliest stages of the early modern transformation of mining and metallurgy from a craft to a large-scale industry, a process that preceded and enabled the later Industrial Revolution.. more...