The Preßnitz () is a right-hand tributary of the Zschopau River in the 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 ...

in eastern Germany and in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. It rises in the Bohemian part of the

Ore Mountains The Ore Mountains (, or ; ) lie along the Czech–German border, separating the historical regions of Bohemia in the Czech Republic and Saxony in Germany. The highest peaks are the Klínovec in the Czech Republic (German: ''Keilberg'') at ab ...

near Horní Halže.

Course

The upper section of the Preßnitz, through the mining areas of Mezilesí to its confluence with the stream Hammerbach from Dolina, was formerly known as the ''Hammerlebach''. Along the rest of the Preßnitz as it flows northwards are the old

mining town A mining community, also known as a mining town or a mining camp, is a community that houses miners. Mining communities are usually created around a mine or a quarry. Historical mining communities Australia * Ballarat, Victoria * Bendig ...

Přísečnice Přísečnice () was a mining town in what is today the municipality of Kryštofovy Hamry in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It was located in the Ore Mountains. Name The town got its Czech name from the Preßnitz, stream of t ...

, which was blown up in 1973 along with the neighbouring villages of Rusová and Dolina, in order to dam the Preßnitz at that point and form a reservoir. In 1976, the Přisečnice Reservoir was completed. At the first village in Saxony that the Preßnitz flows through, Schmalzgrube, it is joined by the Schwarzwasser stream from Jöhstadt. Above the town of

Wolkenstein Wolkenstein is a town in the district Erzgebirgskreis, in Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the Ore Mountains, on the river Zschopau, 22 km southeast of Chemnitz. The town is situated on a rocky spur near the confluence of the Zschopau ...

the Preßnitz finally discharges into the Zschopau.

Industry

Due to the iron ore deposits in the area there were many hammer mills along the Preßnitz in the past, for example in Schmalzgrube, Oberschmiedeberg, Mittelschmiedeberg und Niederschmiedeberg. North of the dam on the border with Saxony is the village of

Kryštofovy Hamry Kryštofovy Hamry () is a municipality and village in Chomutov District Chomutov District () is a district in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. Its capital is the city of Chomutov. Administrative division Chomutov District is di ...

, in which one of the seven factories that manufactured

cobalt blue Cobalt blue is a blue pigment made by sintering cobalt(II) oxide with aluminium(III) oxide (alumina) at 1200 °C. Chemically, cobalt blue pigment is cobalt(II) oxide-aluminium oxide, or cobalt(II) aluminate, CoAl2O4. Cobalt blue is lighte ...

paint in

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

, the ''Blaufarbenwerk St. Christoph'', was located until 1874. From 1955 to 2001 refrigerators were manufactured at Niederschmiedeberg. In 1993 the factory developed the first

chlorofluorocarbon Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are fully or partly Halogenation, halogenated hydrocarbons that contain carbon (C), hydrogen (H), chlorine (Cl), and fluorine (F). They are produced as volatility (chemistry), volat ...

- and

fluorocarbon Fluorocarbons are chemical compounds with carbon-fluorine bonds. Compounds that contain many C-F bonds often have distinctive properties, e.g., enhanced stability, volatility, and hydrophobicity. Several fluorocarbons and their derivatives are ...

-free refrigerators under the trade name of FORON. On the way to Steinbach in the Preßnitz Valley is the show mine of ''Andreas Gegentrum Stolln''.

Railway

From 1892 to 1986 the Pressnitz Valley Railway ran between Wolkenstein and Schmalzgrube, parallel to the Preßnitz River. After its closure a walking and cycling path was built between Wolkenstein and Steinbach on the old railway embankment along which the course of the river can be followed. Between 1995 and 2000 a museum railway was built between Steinbach and Schmalzgrube on the old embankment.

References

Sources

* Bernd Schreiter: ''Hammerwerke im Preßnitz- und Schwarzwassertal.'' Streifzüge durch die Geschichte des oberen Erzgebirges. Heft 14. Annaberg-Buchholz 1997
Download (pdf 200 KB)

External links

Andreas Gegentrum StollnPressnitz Valley Railway
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pressnitz Rivers of Saxony Rivers of the Ústí nad Labem Region Rivers of the Ore Mountains International rivers of Europe Rivers of Germany