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Zwickau (; ) is the fourth-largest city of Saxony, Germany, after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz, with around 88,000 inhabitants,.
The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: Zwickauer Mulde; progression: ), and lies in a string of cities sitting in the densely populated foreland of the Elster Mountains and Ore Mountains stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast. Zwickau is the seat of the Zwickau District, the most densely populated district in the new states of Germany.
Zwickau is the seat of the West Saxon University of Zwickau (German: Westsächsische Hochschule Zwickau) with campuses in Zwickau, Markneukirchen, Reichenbach im Vogtland and Schneeberg (Erzgebirge). The city is the birthplace of composer Robert Schumann.
Zwickau has historically been one of the centres of the German automotive industry. It is the cradle of Audi and its forerunner Horch. Horch was founded there in 1904 and was renamed to Audi in 1909. Zwickau was also the seat of VEB Sachsenring (now Sachsenring GmbH), which produced East Germany's most popular car, the Trabant, in Zwickau. Since 1990, there is a large Volkswagen plant in Zwickau-Mosel.
The Zwickau Mulde River, originating in Schöneck/Vogtl. in the Western Ore Mountains, traverses the city in a south-to-north direction. It enters Zwickau between Zwickau-Cainsdorf and Zwickau-Bockwa, and leaves at Zwickau-Schlunzig near the Volkswagen plant, and is spanned by 17 bridges within the city. The Silver Road, Saxony's longest tourist route, connects Dresden with Zwickau.ADAC Travel Guide, Towns and Cities from A to Z – City Guide Germany Travel Information, first edition June 2005, 368 pages,
Zwickau can be reached by car via the nearby Autobahns A4 and A72, the main railway station (Zwickau Hauptbahnhof), via a public airfield which takes light aircraft, and by bike along the Zwickau Mulde River on the so-called Mulderadweg.
Its nine churches include the Gothic church of St. Mary (1451–1536), with a spire high and a bell weighing 51 . The church contains an altar with wood carvings, eight paintings by Michael Wohlgemuth and a pietà in carved and painted wood by Peter Breuer.
The late Gothic church of St. Catharine has an altar piece ascribed to Lucas Cranach the elder, and is remembered because Thomas Müntzer was once pastor there (1520–22). The city hall was begun in 1404 and rebuilt many times since. The municipal archives include documents dating back to the 13th century.
Early printed books from the Middle Ages, historical documents, letters and books are kept in the City Archives (e.g. Meister Singer volumes by Hans Sachs (1494–1576)), and in the School Library founded by scholars and by the city clerk Stephan Roth during the Reformation.
In 1520 Martin Luther dedicated his treatise "On the Freedom of the Christian Man" to his friend Hermann Muehlpfort, the Lord Mayor of Zwickau. The Anabaptist movement of 1525 began at Zwickau under the inspiration of the "Zwickau prophets". After Wittenberg, it became the first city in Europe to join the Lutheran Reformation. The late Gothic Gewandhaus (cloth merchants' hall), was built in 1522–24 and is now converted into a theatre. The city was seriously damaged during the Thirty Years' War.
The old city of Zwickau, perched on a hill, is surrounded by heights with extensive forests and a municipal park. Near the city are the Hartenstein area, for example, with Stein and Wolfsbrunn castles and the Prinzenhöhle cave, as well as the Auersberg peak (1019 meters) and the winter sports areas around Johanngeorgenstadt and the Vogtland.
In the Old Town the Cathedral and the Gewandhaus (cloth merchants' hall) originate in the 16th century and when Schneeberg silver was traded. In the 19th century the city's economy was driven by industrial coal mining and later by automobile manufacturing.
During World War II, in 1942, a Nazi show trial of the members of the Polish underground resistance organization from Gostyń was held in Zwickau, after which 12 members were executed in Dresden, and several dozen were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps, where 37 of them died. In May 1942, five Polish students of the Salesian Oratory in Poznań, known as the or five of the 108 Blessed Polish Martyrs of World War II, were imprisoned in Zwickau, before being executed in Dresden. A subcamp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp was located in Zwickau, whose prisoners were mostly Poles and Russians, but also Italians, French, Hungarians, Jews, Czechs, Germans and others.
On 17 April 1945, US troops entered the city. They withdrew on 30 June 1945 and handed Zwickau to the Soviet Red Army. Between 1944 and 2003, the city had a population of over 100,000.
A major employer is Volkswagen which assembles its ID.3, ID.4 and ID.5 models, as well as Audi and Cupra EV's in the Zwickau-Mosel vehicle plant.
In 1885 Carl Wolf invented an improved gas-detecting safety mining-lamp. He held the first world patent for it. Together with his business partner Friemann he founded the "Friemann & Wolf" factory. Coal mining ceased in 1978. About 230 million tonnes had been mined to a depth of over 1,000 metres. In 1992 Zwickau's last coke oven plant was closed.
Many industrial branches developed in the city in the wake of the coal mining industry: mining equipment, iron and steel works, textile, machinery in addition to chemical, porcelain, paper, glass, dyestuffs, wire goods, tinware, stockings, and curtains. There were also steam saw-mills, diamond and glass polishing works, iron-foundries, and breweries.
With the founding of the German Democratic Republic in 1949 in East Germany, post-war reconstruction began. In 1958 the Horch and Audi factories were merged into the Sachsenring plant. At the Sachsenring automotive plant the compact Trabant cars were manufactured. These small cars had a two-cylinder, two-stroke engine. The car was the first vehicle in the world to be industrially manufactured with a plastic car body. The production of the Trabant was discontinued after German reunification, but Volkswagen built a new factory in the nearby Mosel area to the north of the city and Sachsenring is now a supplier for the automobile industry. The former VEB Sachsenring manufacturing site was acquired by Volkswagen in 1990 and has since been redeveloped as an engine and transmission manufacturing facility. Nowadays the headquarters of Volkswagen-Saxony Ltd. (a VW subsidiary) is in the northern part of Zwickau.
Audi together with the city of Zwickau operates the August Horch Museum in the former Audi works. In 2021, production of the Audi Q4 e-tron began at the Zwickau-Mosel plant, marking the return of the manufacture of Audi badged cars in Zwickau for the first time in over 80 years.
Dr. Martin Luther School (German: Dr. Martin Luther Schule) is a grade 1–4 school of the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church in Zwickau.
! rowspan=2 colspan=2| Candidate ! rowspan=2| Party ! colspan=2| First round ! colspan=2| Second round |- ! Votes ! % ! Votes ! % |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Kathrin Köhler | align=left| Christian Democratic Union | 9,453 | 31.5 | 7,549 | 28.1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Constance Arndt | align=left| Citizens for Zwickau | 6,506 | 21.7 | 19,358 | 71.9 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Andreas Gerold | align=left| Alternative for Germany | 5,109 | 17.0 | align=center colspan=2| Withdrew |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Michael Jakob | align=left| Independent | 4,797 | 16.0 | align=center colspan=2| Withdrew |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Ute Manuela Brückner | align=left| The Left | 4,183 | 13.9 | align=center colspan=2| Withdrew |- ! colspan=3| Valid votes ! 30,048 ! 99.3 ! 26,907 ! 99.1 |- ! colspan=3| Invalid votes ! 204 ! 0.7 ! 246 ! 0.9 |- ! colspan=3| Total ! 30,252 ! 100.0 ! 27,153 ! 100.0 |- ! colspan=3| Electorate/voter turnout ! 72,225 ! 41.9 ! 72,085 ! 37.7 |- | colspan=7| Source: City of Zwickau ( 1st round, 2nd round) |}
The most recent city council election was held on 9 June 2024, and the results were as follows:
! colspan=2| Party ! Votes ! % ! +/- ! Seats ! +/- |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Alternative for Germany (AfD) | 38,740 | 32.3 | 10.4 | 16 | 5 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Christian Democratic Union (CDU) | 24,937 | 20.8 | 1.2 | 10 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) | 15,593 | 13.0 | New | 6 | New |- | | align=left| Citizens for Zwickau (BfZ) | 14,970 | 12.5 | 1.8 | 6 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Social Democratic Party (SPD) | 8,304 | 6.9 | 3.3 | 3 | 2 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| The Left (Die Linke) | 5,312 | 4.4 | 10.3 | 2 | 6 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Alliance 90/The Greens (Grüne) | 3,823 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 2 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Free Democratic Party (FDP) | 3,702 | 3.1 | 2.5 | 1 | 2 |- | bgcolor=169340| | align=left| Freie Sachsen (FS) | 2,823 | 2.4 | New | 1 | New |- | | align=left| Shaping Zwickau Together (2ZG) | 1,816 | 1.5 | New | 1 | New |- ! colspan=2| Valid votes ! 120,020 ! 100.0 ! ! ! |- ! colspan=2| Total ballots ! 42,623 ! 100.0 ! ! 48 ! ±0 |- ! colspan=2| Electorate/voter turnout ! 68,766 ! 62.0 ! 7.0 ! ! |- | colspan=7| Source: City of Zwickau |}
Zwickau Hauptbahnhof is on the Dresden–Werdau line, part of the Saxon-Franconian trunk line, connecting Nuremberg and Dresden. There are further railway connections to Leipzig as well as Karlovy Vary and Cheb in the Czech Republic. The core element of Zwickau's urban public transport system is the Zwickau tramway network; the system is also the prototype of the so-called Zwickau Model for such systems.
The closest airport is Leipzig-Altenburg, which has no scheduled commercial flights. The nearest major airports are Leipzig/Halle Airport and Dresden Airport, both of which offer a large number of national and international flights.
Zwickau is the birthplace of the composer Robert Schumann. The house where he was born in 1810 still stands in the marketplace. This is now called Robert Schumann House and is a museum dedicated to him.
The histories of the Audi and Horch automobile factories are presented at the August Horch Museum Zwickau. The museum is an Anchor Point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage (EIRH).
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