Saxony

Saxony (in German, Sachsen, pronounced/^zaksn//( listen); high sip, Sakska), officially called Free State of Saxony (in German, Freistaat Sachsen, pronounced/хf/a hydrat εzaksn//), is one of the 16 federated states in Germany. Its official name originates in the Republic of Weimar.

It is located in the center-east of the country and borders Brandenburg to the north, Saxony-Anhalt to the northwest, Thuringia to the west and touches Bavaria to the south. In addition, it has a border, also in the south, with the Czech Republic and in the east with Poland. Both have been open since December 2007 thanks to the Schengen Agreement. Its capital is Dresden.

Administrative division

Regions

Saxony is administratively divided into three regions (Landesdirektion) (Regierungsbezirke), which are further subdivided into 10 districts and 3 city-districts:

1. Chemnitz
2. Dresden
3. Leipzig

The Regierungsbezirke contain a total of 10 Landkreise (districts) and three city-districts (kreisfreie Städte) so defined on August 1, 2008.

The current districts after the August 2008 reform.

Districts

1. Bautzen
2. Erzgebirgskreis
3. Görlitz
4. Leipzig
5. Meißen
6. Mittelsachsen
7. Nordsachsen
8. Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge
9. Vogtlandkreis
10. Zwickau

Cities-districts

The three city-districts are:

1. Chemnitz (C)
2. Dresden (DD)
3. Leipzig (L)

Biggest Cities

The largest cities by number of inhabitants are Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz. Zwickau lost its Big City status in 2003 due to population decline. The Federal State had previously granted it when it exceeded the barrier of 100,000 inhabitants. This city, Zwickau, also lost the title of city-district on August 1, 2008. The capital Dresden and Saxony's largest city, Leipzig, also lost many inhabitants in the first years after German reunification, mostly due to internal migration after having belonged to the GDR for more than fifteen years.

Geography

The most important cities, landscapes and rivers of Saxony.

The German geographical division makes the Free State of Saxony the easternmost Land of the country. Topographically, the State can be divided into a plain, a medium-altitude mountain system, and regions with hills.

The Leipzig Valley (Leipziger Tieflandsbucht) south of the city and north of Oberlausitz make up the plains. The two regions are characterized by deposits from the Paleocene and the glacial period. In addition, river valleys and lignite deposits mark these plains.

The hilly regions (Mittelsächsisches Hügelland) further south have extensive loess deposits and the high quality of the soil in the region is due to the moraine. The mid-altitude mountain system (sächsischen Mittelgebirge), which runs from west to east, has very imprecise boundaries. In the southwest it reaches the Bavarian Vogtland.

The southern border is formed by the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge). The height decreases from west to east, which is why the highest elevation in Saxony, the Fichtelberg (1215m), belongs to the Ore Mountains. To the south of the borders of the state with the Czech Republic, the mentioned mountains lose altitude and end in the valley of Egertalgraben. To the north of the mountains is the Erzgebirge/Vogtland Nature Reserve. Further east, the Elbe flows through the mountain range and forms the Elbsandsteingebirge on the ground. The northern boundary of the Elbe valley forms the Lusatian Lausitzer Verwerfung rift, which is the border of the Lusatian Lausitzer Gebirge mountain range that runs to the Czech Republic.

Another possible division of Saxony is hydrography. The only and most important navigable river is the Elbe. It crosses the state from the southeast to the northwest. The Mulde, the Weißeritz, the Zschopau, the Weiße Elster and the Spree are its tributaries and therefore belong to the Elbe system. Only the eastern end belongs to another basin, that of the Neisse River, a tributary of the Oder, which forms the border with Poland.

Demographics

Dresden.

Leipzig.

Freiberg.

Chemnitz.

Demographic development in Saxony since 1905:

The average number of children per woman in Saxony was 1,342 in 2006, which is above the German average of 1,333. Thus, Saxony is the only State of the former GDR with a higher average than that of Germany. Since reunification in 1990, the population in Saxony has decreased by more than 600,000, due to internal migration and few births.

History

Saxony has a long history as a duchy, an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire (the Electorate of Saxony), and finally as a kingdom (the Kingdom of Saxony). In 1918, after Germany's defeat in World War I, its monarchy was overthrown and a republican form of government was established under its current name. The state was divided into smaller units during the communist government (1949-1989), but was re-established on October 3, 1990 with the reunification of Germany.

Old Age

In antiquity, the territory of Saxony was the site of some of the largest monumental temples in central Europe, dating back to the 17th century V a. C. Outstanding archaeological sites have been discovered in Dresden and the towns of Eythra and Zwenkau near Leipzig. The Slavic and German presence in the territory of what is now Saxony is believed to have started in the I century B.C. c.

Parts of Saxony were possibly under the control of the German king Marbod during Roman times. By the end of the Roman period, various tribes known as the 'Saxons' arose, from whom later entities took their names. For the origins of the Saxon tribes, see Saxons.

Duchy of Saxony

Henry the Lion (with his wife Matilde of England, duchess of Saxony) is crowned as Duke of Saxony

The first medieval duchy of Saxony was a "Carolingian root duchy", which arose around the turn of the century VIII and grew to include most of what is now northern Germany, in what are now the modern German states of Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Schleswig -Holstein and Saxony-Anhalt. The Saxons converted to Christianity in this period.^{[citation needed]}

The Saxons faced pressure from the Franks under Charlemagne and at the same time faced a westward advance by the Slavs. The territory of the Free State of Saxony, called White Serbia, was, from the V century, populated by Slavs before being conquered by the Germans, that is, Saxons and Thuringians. A legacy of this period is the Sorbian population in Saxony. The eastern parts of what is now Saxony were ruled by Poland between 1002 and 1032 and by Bohemia from 1293.

Holy Roman Empire

The territory of the Free State of Saxony became part of the Holy Roman Empire in the X century, when the Dukes of Saxony were also kings (or emperors) of the Holy Roman Empire, including the Ottonian or Saxon dynasty. At about this time the Billungs, a noble Saxon family, were given extensive fields in Saxony. The emperor eventually gave them the title of Dukes of Saxony. After the death of Duke Magnus in 1106, which caused the extinction of the Billung male line, supervision of the duchy was turned over to Lothair of Supplinburg, who also became emperor for a short time.

In 1137, control of Saxony passed to the Guelf dynasty, descendants of Wulfhild Billung, eldest daughter of the last Duke Billung, and daughter of Lothair of Supplinburg. In 1180 large portions to the west of the River Weser were ceded to the bishops of Cologne, while some of the central parts between the Weser and the Elbe remained with the Guelphs, later becoming the duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg. The rest of the eastern lands, along with the title of duke of Saxony, passed to the Ascanian dynasty (descended from Eilika Billung, Wulfhild's younger sister) and were divided in 1260 into two small states: Saxe-Lauenburg and Saxe-Wittenberg.. The first state was also called Lower Saxony, the second Upper Saxony, hence the later names of the two imperial circles Saxony-Lauenburg and Saxony-Wittenberg. Both claimed for themselves the Saxon electoral privilege, but the Golden Bull of 1356 accepted only Wittenberg's claim, and despite this Lauenburg continued to maintain his claim. In 1422, when the Saxon electoral line of Ascanians died out, the Ascanian Eric V of Saxe-Lauenburg attempted to reunite the Saxon duchies.

However, Sigismund, King of the Romans, had already delivered to Margrave Frederick IV the Warlike of Meissen (House of Wettin) an expectation of the Saxon electorate to remunerate his military support. On August 1, 1425 Sigismund enfeuded the Wettinian Frederick as Prince-Elector of Saxony, despite Eric V's protests. Thus the Saxon territories continued to be permanently separated. The Electorate of Saxony was then merged with the much larger Wettinian Margraviate of Meissen, however using the higher ranking name Electorate of Saxony and even the Ascanian crest for the entire monarchy. Saxony thus came to include Dresden and Meissen. In the 18th and 19th centuries Saxony-Lauenburg was colloquially called the Duchy of Lauenburg, which in 1876 merged with Prussia as the district of the Duchy of Lauenburg.

Foundation of the Second Saxon State

The voters of Saxony at the end of the centuryXVII 18th century, represented in a frieze on the outer wall of the palace of Dresden

In Saxony there are numerous castles, such as the palace of Moritzburg north of Dresden

Zwinger in Dresden, 1895

Saxony-Wittenberg, in modern Saxony-Anhalt, became a subject of the Margraviate of Meissen, ruled by the Wettin dynasty in 1423. This established a powerful new state, occupying large portions of the present Free State of Saxony, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Bavaria (Coburg and its surroundings). Although the center of this state was far to the southeast of the former Saxony, it came to be known as Upper Saxony and then simply Saxony, while the former Saxon territories were thereafter known as Lower Saxony.

In 1485, Saxony was divided. A collateral line of the Wettin princes later received Thuringia and founded several small states there (see the Ernestine duchies). The remaining Saxon state grew even more powerful and was known in the 18th century century for its cultural achievements, although it was politically weaker than Prussia and Austria, states that oppressed Saxony from the north and south respectively.

Between 1697 and 1763, the Electors of Saxony were also elected kings of Poland in a personal union.

In the 18th century, Saxony participated in the Seven Years' War alongside Austria, France, Russia, Sweden and Spain, against Hanover and the Prussia of Frederick II the Great. Frederick II opted for a preemptive attack and invaded Saxony in August 1756, precipitating the Seven Years' War. The Prussians quickly defeated Saxony and incorporated the Saxon army into the Prussian one. At the end of the Seven Years' War, Saxony once again became an independent state, albeit considerably reduced in size.

Saxony in the 19th and 20th centuries

19th century

In 1806, the French Emperor Napoleon abolished the Holy Roman Empire and established the Electorate of Saxony as a kingdom in exchange for military support. The Elector Frederick Augustus III thus became King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony. Frederick Augustus remained loyal to Napoleon during the wars that swept Europe in the following years; he was taken prisoner and his territories declared lost by the allies in 1813, after the defeat of Napoleon. Prussia sought the annexation of Saxony but the opposition of Austria, France and the United Kingdom to this plan resulted in the restoration of Frederick Augustus to the throne at the Congress of Vienna although he was forced to cede the northern part of the kingdom to Prussia. These lands became the province of Prussian Saxony, now incorporated into the modern state of Saxony-Anhalt except for the westernmost part around Bad Langensalza now in Thuringia. Also Lower Lusatia became part of the province of Brandenburg and the north-eastern tip of Upper Lusatia became part of the province of Silesia. The rest of the kingdom of Saxony was roughly identical with the current federal state, although slightly smaller.

Meanwhile, in 1815, the southern part of Saxony, now called the "State of Saxony" it joined the German Confederation. (This German Confederation is not to be confused with the North German Confederation mentioned below.) In the politics of the Confederation, Saxony was overshadowed by Prussia. King Antony of Saxony ascended the throne of Saxony in 1827. Soon after, liberal pressures in Saxony mounted and a rebellion broke out in 1830—a year of revolutions in Europe. The revolution in Saxony resulted in a constitution for the state. of Saxony which served as the base of his rule until 1918.

During the Constitutionalist revolutions in Germany in 1848-49, Saxony became a hotbed of revolutionaries, with anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin and democrats including Richard Wagner and Gottfried Semper intervening in the May Rising in Dresden in 1849. (Scenes from Richard Wagner's involvement in the 1849 May Rising in Dresden is depicted in the 1983 film Wagner with Richard Burton starring as the composer.) The May Rising in Dresden forced King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony to make more reformist concessions to the Saxon government.

In 1854 Frederick Augustus' brother, King John of Saxony, succeeded to the throne. A scholar, King John translated Dante. King John followed a federalist and pro-Austrian policy in the early 1860s until the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War. During the war, Prussian troops crossed Saxony without resistance and then invaded Austrian (now Czech) Bohemia. After the war, Saxony was forced to pay indemnity and join the North German Confederation in 1867. Under the terms From the North German Confederation, Prussians assumed control of the Saxon postal system, its railways, the army, and foreign policy. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Saxon troops fought alongside Prussian and other German troops against France.. In 1871, Saxony joined the newly formed German Empire.

20th century

The first Freistaat Sachsen was formed in 1918 following the abdication of King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony on November 13, 1918 and the dissolution of the Kingdom of Saxony. Saxony, which remained a constituent state of Germany (Weimar Republic), became the Free State of Saxony under a new constitution promulgated on November 1, 1920.

Dresden in ruins. After the SGM, more than 90% of the city center was destroyed.

Modern architecture at the University of Leipzig

In October 1923 the federal government under chancellor Gustav Stresemann brought down the legally elected SPD-communist coalition government in Saxony. The state kept its name and borders during Nazi times as a Gau, but lost its quasi-autonomous status and parliamentary democracy.

As World War II drew to a close, American troops under General Patton occupied the western part of Saxony in April 1945, while Soviet troops occupied the eastern part. That summer, the entire state was turned over to Soviet forces as agreed in the London protocol of September 1944. The United Kingdom, the United States, and the USSR then negotiated the future of Germany at the Potsdam conference. Under the Potsdam Accords, all German territory east of the Oder-Neisse line would be annexed to Poland and the USSR and, unlike after World War I, the annexationist powers could expel the inhabitants. Over the next three years, Poland and Czechoslovakia forcibly removed German-speaking people from their territories, some of them ending up in Saxony. Only a small area of Saxony lying east of the Neisse River and centering around the city of Reichenau (now called Bogatynia), was annexed to Poland. The Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SVAG) merged that small part of the Prussian Lower Silesia Province that remained in Germany with Saxony.^{[citation needed]}

The Land Sachsen was created in 1945 as part of the Soviet zone of the Weimar Republic on the territories of the former Freistaat Sachsen and the province of Silesia to the west of the Neisse.

On October 20, 1946, the SVAG organized elections for the Saxon state parliament (Landtag), but many people were arbitrarily excluded from running or voting, and the Soviet Union blatantly supported to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). The new Minister-President Rudolf Friedrichs (SED), had been a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) until April 1946. He met his Bavarian colleagues in the American occupation zone in October 1946 and May 1947, but died suddenly under mysterious circumstances the following month. He was succeeded by Max Seydewitz, a staunch supporter of Stalin.^{[citation needed]}

The German Democratic Republic (East Germany), including Saxony, was established in 1949 in the Soviet occupation zone, becoming a constitutionally socialist state, part of COMECON and the Warsaw Pact, under the leadership of the SED.

In 1952 the Free State of Saxony (Land Sachsen) was dissolved and divided into three districts of the German Democratic Republic: Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz, later renamed Karl-Marx-Stadt. Also areas around Hoyerswerda formed part of that of Cottbus.

This Land Sachsen was recreated after German Reunification by law of July 22, 1990, with slightly changed borders. In addition to the formerly Silesian area of Saxony, which for the most part was included in the territory of the new Saxony, the free state obtained further areas north of Leipzig that had belonged to Saxony-Anhalt until 1952. Originally the law should have entered entered into force on October 14, 1990, but after the revision of September 13, 1990, it entered into force on October 3, 1990, the day of German reunification, where all the states that formed the GDR joined the Federal Republic of Germany. Since then, the Land Sachsen was renamed Freistaat Sachsen and the German constitution (Grundgesetz) came into force.

Culture

Most Saxons are atheists^{[citation needed]} Saxons enjoy secular politics and are free to choose their creed. The Evangelical Church has the largest number of faithful in most towns and cities. In addition there are countless Independent Churches (Freikriche), Jewish and Muslim communities, albeit with fewer adherents.^{[citation needed]}

The state's professional soccer teams are Dinamo Dresden, RB Leipzig, FC Erzgebirge Aue and Chemnitzer FC. Sachsenring has hosted the German Motorcycle Grand Prix, which belongs to the Motorcycle World Championship.

Politics

Since German reunification, the CDU has been the strongest political party in Saxony and therefore the party that appoints the prime minister of Saxony. Since 2019, a coalition of CDU, Alianza 90/Los Verdes and SPD has governed, under Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer.

In January 2005 there was a nationwide scandal in the Landtag of Saxony, when it wanted to hold a minute's silence in reference to the Holocaust victims who died in Auschwitz. Congressmen from the National Democratic Party (NPD, of radical neo-Nazi ideology) refused to do so and left the Landtag room.

In the 2017 federal elections, the Alternative for Germany (AFD) party was the most voted party in the region with 27% of the vote.

Justice

The Constitutional Court of Saxony is in Leipzig and the High Court in Dresden. In Bautzen is the Higher Administrative Court of Saxony (Sächsischen Oberverwaltungsgerichtes). In addition, Leipzig is the seat of the Higher Administrative Court of the Federal State (Bundesverwaltungsgericht).

Economy

Saxony, like most of the states of the former GDR, has experienced uneven economic progress, although the situation has improved overall. Many factories with backward technology of that time were closed and the lignite deposits stopped being exploited.

Today, Saxony has the best economy in central Germany, although the unemployment problem has not been solved. Approximately 230,000 people do not have a job (2012), this means that the unemployment rate is 10.8% (2012), while that of Germany is 7.2% and that of East Germany (States of the former -RDA) of 11.9%.

The growth rate in certain industries in Saxony is between 8% and 9%, the highest in Germany. The income rate of the inhabitants between 20-35 years is higher than the German average, which indicates that Saxony is increasingly reaching the wealth values of the western states. This, however, is offset by the low income of the population over 40 years of age. Saxony's gross domestic product was 85.9% (in 2004) of the European average.

Saxony's economic performance in 2007, as measured by GDP, was €93 billion.

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