Markkleeberg () is an affluent suburb of

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

, located in the Leipzig district of the

Free State of Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

, Germany. The river Pleiße runs through the city, which borders Leipzig to the north and to the west. Markkleeberg is known to be the entry point to a region of recultivated open-cast mining lakes south of Leipzig dubbed the ''Leipziger Neuseenland''.

History

The town now called Markkleeberg has its origins in several towns that have been merged over the years. The center of modern-day Markkleeberg used to be called Oetzsch. It was merged with the smaller outlying district Markkleeberg in 1911 and renamed Oetzsch-Markkleeberg. Oetzsch-Markkleeberg was in turn merged with Gautzsch and the whole town was called "Markkleeberg", although Markkleeberg was the smallest, because it sounded most Germanic at a time of Nazi-led

Germanisation Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people, and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In l ...

. The etymology of Markkleeberg may be "clover hill market town". The name of Oetzsch has most likely a Wendish origin. In 1316 it was mentioned in a document as "Euschiz". The village originally had the form of a Rundling. In 1813 much of the

Battle of Leipzig The Battle of Leipzig, also known as the Battle of the Nations, was fought from 16 to 19 October 1813 at Leipzig, Saxony. The Coalition armies of Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Russia, led by Tsar Alexander I, Karl von Schwarzenberg, and G ...

took place where today's Markkleeberg is situated. During 1944 and 1945, a forced labor camp for women was established in the town, initially a subcamp of the

Ravensbrück concentration camp Ravensbrück () was a Nazi concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel). The camp memorial's estimated figure of 1 ...

and later of

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...

. Among the inmates were a thousand Jewish women from Hungary and 250 French resistance fighters. In early April 1945, the surviving inmates were transferred to the

Mauthausen-Gusen Mauthausen was a German Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 f ...

camp in Austria. Today, Markkleeberg is a growing town because of its proximity to

Historical population

(Source since 1998: Statistical bureau of Saxony)

Culture

Markkleeberg is a well-known tourist destination. Cospudener See, Markkleeberger See,

Kanupark Markkleeberg Kanupark Markkleeberg, built in 2006, is the second of two artificial whitewater canoe/kayak slalom courses in Germany, and the only one powered by pumps. The other German course is the Eiskanal in Augsburg, used in the 1972 Summer Olympic Games ...

as well as many parks like the Agra-Park are close to the city. File:Markkleeberg Rathaus.jpg, Markkleeberg town hall File:Markkleeberg Schloss.jpg, Markkleeberg castle File:Musentempel im Herbst, 1710150958, ako.jpg, ''Musentempel'',

monopteros A monopteros (Ancient Greek: , from: μόνος, 'only, single, alone', and , 'wing'), also called a monopteron or cyclostyle, is a circular colonnade supporting a roof but without any walls.Curl, James Stevens (2006). ''Oxford Dictionary of Archi ...

in the Agra park File:Wachau-Mai-2009 065.jpg, Ruined church in Wachau File:Oetzsch-Mai-2009 007.jpg,

Gründerzeit The (; ) was a period of Economic history of Europe (1000 AD–present), European economic history in mid- and late-19th century German Empire, Germany and Austria-Hungary between Industrialization in Germany, industrialization and the great P ...

house in Markkleeberg File:Markkleeberger See Wildwasseranlage2.jpg,

File:Kirche-Kees.jpg, Keesscher park and Martin Luther church

Twin towns – sister cities

Markkleeberg is twinned with: * Boville Ernica, Italy * Neusäß, Germany * Pierre-Bénite, France *

Zărnești Zărnești (; ; ) is a town in Brașov County, Transylvania, Romania, with a population of 21,624 as of 2021. It administers one village, Tohanu Nou (''Neu-Tohan''; ''Újtohán''). The town is located near the Piatra Craiului Mountains, which ...

, Romania

References

Leipzig (district) {{Leipzig-geo-stub