Aue

The town's first mention came in 1219 when it was named in a document as Bertoldus prepositus de Owa. Owa, later also Awe or Aw referred to the meadow (although Aue in German actually means “floodplain”) at the forks of the Schwarzwasser und Zwickauer Mulde, where the first settlers had their homes next to the small monastery of Zelle, founded in 1173. In 1479, tin and silver mining began, leading to an upswing in the town's fortunes. In 1526, the Auerhammer (ironworks), later called Eisenwerk and now a constituent community of Aue, had its first documentary mention.

The first St. Nicholas' Church, of which no details have been passed down, was located on the former church square, the Kirchplatz (the present Neumarkt) and must have been replaced by a new building between 1625 and 1628. On 4 August 1633 this building, together with a large part of the town, was destroyed in a raid by imperial troops. By 1636 the church had been temporarily rebuilt.

In 1627, Aue was granted market rights by Elector Johann Georg I of Saxony for a yearly market on Saint Bartholomew's Day (27 August), and in 1632 for a second, the Katharinenmarkt, on 25 November. In 1635, Veit Hans Schnorr founded the first blue dye works in Saxony in Niederpfannenstiel, now also a constituent community of Aue. From 1711 kaolin was also delivered to Meißen for preparing porcelain. Since the mid-18th century, documents have referred to Aue as a town. In 1897, Zelle was amalgamated with Aue, and Alberoda followed in 1929. Already by 1901, the royal Amt court had taken up its function in the town.

One of Saxony's oldest artworks is the painting from the east wall of the little monastery, which shows Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa, Mary and a bishop. In the 1930s, it was removed for reasons of restoration, and is now found in the St.-Annen-Kapelle near the cathedral in Freiberg. A copy by H. Beck is found in the Friedenskirche Aue-Zelle (“Peace Church”).

During World War II, a subcamp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp was located here.[2]

Like Schwarzenberg, the town remained unoccupied for a while after the Second World War ended in 1945.

Until 1994, the town was the administrative seat of the district of Aue. With district reform in Saxony that year, Aue became the administrative seat of the newly formed district of Aue-Schwarzenberg.

Since 1996, there has been a Silberberg Town League (Städtebund Silberberg), to which, besides Aue, also belong Schneeberg, Schwarzenberg, Bad Schlema, Lauter and Lößnitz. In November 2006 the mayors of Aue, Lößnitz, Schneeberg and Bad Schlema expressed the intention of amalgamating their respective municipalities into a united town of Silberberg.

The town has a station at the junction on the Zwickau–Schwarzenberg line and is served by Regionalbahn trains, operated by Erzgebirgsbahn (a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn) between Zwickau and Johanngeorgenstadt.

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  "Altes Rathaus", "Nicolaikirche" and Marketplace, ca 1900
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  Former Amtsgericht in Aue
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  Memorial for Friedrich Fröbel
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  World War II memorial at the St. Nicolai cemetery
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  Die Teppichweber (The carpetweavers) after a poem from Bertolt Brecht, by Kujan-Bulak

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aue (Sachsen).

• Aue.de, town's homepage
• Texts on Wikisource:
  • "Aue". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
  • "Aue". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
  • "Aue". Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.