Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge
Saxon Switzerland-Eastern Ore Mountains (, ) is a district ('' Kreis'') in Saxony, Germany. It is named after the mountain ranges Saxon Switzerland and Eastern Ore Mountains.
History
The district was established by merging the former districts ...
district, in
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
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
.
Geography
The town of Sebnitz lies in the valley of the river
Sebnitz
Sebnitz (; , ) is a town in the Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge district, in Saxony, Germany.
Geography
The town of Sebnitz lies in the valley of the river Sebnitz (river), Sebnitz and its side valleys between 251 and 460 m above Normalnull ...
and its
side valley
Side valleys and tributary valleys are valleys whose brooks or rivers flow into greater ones.
Upstream, the valleys can be classified in an increasing order which is equivalent to the usual orographic order: the tributaries are ordered from ...
s between 251 and 460 m above
sea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...
between the mountains of
Saxon Switzerland
Saxon Switzerland (, ) is a hilly climbing area and national park in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains. It is located around the Elbe valley south-east of Dresden in Saxony, Germany, adjoining Bohemian Switzerland in the Czech Republic. Toge ...
and the
Lusatian Highlands
The Lusatian Highlands at www.silvaportal.info. Accessed on 10 July 2011. or Lusatian HillsWest Lusatian Upland, but lies right on the border with the Upper Lusatian Highlands. Because the natural region of Saxon Switzerland is also very close by, the countryside around the town is very varied.
The municipality consists of the town Sebnitz itself, Schönbach (joined 1935), Hainersdorf (joined 1920), Hertigswalde (joined 1950),
Hinterhermsdorf
Sebnitz (; , ) is a town in the Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge district, in Saxony, Germany.
Geography
The town of Sebnitz lies in the valley of the river Sebnitz (river), Sebnitz and its side valleys between 251 and 460 m above Normalnull ...
(joined 1998) and the former municipality of
Kirnitzschtal
Kirnitzschtal is a former municipality in the Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge district, in Saxony, Germany. Since 1 October 2012, it is part of the town Sebnitz. It had its administrative seat in Lichtenhain.
The municipality was divided into th ...
(joined 2012), that itself consisted of the villages Altendorf,
Mittelndorf
Mittelndorf is a village in Saxony, Germany, situated in the district of Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge. It was one of the villages that composed the municipality of Kirnitzschtal. Since 1 October 2012, it is part of the town Sebnitz.
History
...
Sebnitz was first mentioned in a document of 1223/1241 outlining the borders between the kingdom of
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 ...
and the diocese of
Meißen
Meissen ( ), is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden and 75 km (46 mi) west of Bautzen on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, th ...
. In 1451 it was first mentioned as a town. A new town hall was built in 1714–1715, but was destroyed together with numerous other buildings, among them the school house, in a fire in 1854. Around 1900 Sebnitz became a centre of the manufacture of artificial flowers. From 1952 until 1994 the town was the administrative centre of the district Sebnitz.
In 1997, six-year-old German-Iraqi Joseph Kantelberg-Abdulla, who suffered from a heart condition, had a heart attack and drowned in the local public swimming pool. Three months later, his mother claimed that the boy had been tortured and drowned by no less than 50 neo-Nazis, wearing boots, tattoos, and all. While ''
Der Spiegel
(, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'' did not buy the story, tabloid ''
Bild
''Bild'' (, ) or ''Bild-Zeitung'' (, ) is a German tabloid newspaper published by Axel Springer SE. The paper is published from Monday to Saturday; on Sundays, its sister paper '' Bild am Sonntag'' () is published instead, which has a differen ...
'' took full advantage, dragging the town into the national spotlight for about a week until the mother was investigated by police for encouraging false accusations.
Sebnitz hosted the Festival "Tag der Sachsen" in 2003. In October 2015 around 3000 people protested against the migration policy of the German Chancellor
Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She is the only woman to have held the office. She was Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and Leade ...
and built a symbolic 'living frontier' () against
asylum seekers
An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country, and makes in that other country a formal application for the right of asylum according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 14. A pers ...
.
Transport
Sebnitz railway station
Sebnitz () is a railway station in the town of Sebnitz, Saxony, Germany. The station lies on the Bautzen–Bad Schandau railway and the Rumburk–Sebnitz railway.
The station is served by DB Regio Südost.
The line into the Czech Republic, t ...
Bautzen–Bad Schandau railway
The Bautzen–Bad Schandau railway is a 64-kilometre long railway line in the state of Saxony, Germany, which connects Bautzen to Bad Schandau via Neukirch/Lausitz, Neustadt in Sachsen and Sebnitz. The railway was opened fully in 1898. The part ...
. Train services are operated by Städtebahn Sachsen ''(Pirna–Neustadt–Sebnitz)'' and
DB Regio
DB Regio AG () is a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn which operates regional and commuter train services in Germany. It is a 100% subsidiary of the Deutsche Bahn Group and therefore part of the DB Regio business segment, which also includes DB Regionn ...
(in cooperation with
České dráhy
České dráhy (English: ''Czech Railways''), often shortened to ČD, is the major Rail transport, railway operator in the Czech Republic providing regional and long-distance services.
The company was established in January 1993, shortly after ...
) ''(Rumburk–Dolní Poustevna–Sebnitz–Bad Schandau–Děčín hl.n.)'', mostly every two hours. The Kirnitzschtalbahn, a rural
tram
A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...
way, serves the
Lichtenhain Waterfall
The Lichtenhain Waterfall is a waterfall formed by the Lichtenhainer village brook and is situated in the Kirnitzsch Valley in the Saxon Switzerland of Germany. The village of Lichtenhain (Sebnitz), Lichtenhain lies to the north of the waterfall, a ...