Grünzug Weißeritz

The southwest of Dresden has always been associated with the Weisseritz River. This untamed and, as the floods of 2002 demonstrated, sometimes unpredictable mountain river was used for centuries to provide power and drive mills. Before it flows to the district of Plauen, the Weisseritz runs through the Plauenscher Grund Valley, which, with its natural beauty, was an escape from the bustle of the town and a place for rest and recreation until the incursion of industry and the railways in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
After 1945, and especially after the political and economic changes of 1989, many of the industrial buildings and sites along the river became unused, neglected and abandoned, and they gradually fell into dereliction. This, of course, also had a bad effect on their surroundings.

In order to carry out the programme of the Weisseritz Integrated Urban Development Project, which is supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the town bought certain of these abandoned sites and was then able to clear away ruins and any industrial contamination that might have been on them. The newly available land is being developed as a continuous public park, the Weisseritz Grünzug, which is to run for some 4 km mostly along or near to the river. The now completed north-eastern part of the Grünzug between the Weisseritzknick and the former Coal Train Station follows the historical bed of the river, whose original course along here was diverted at the end of the 19th century to provide valuable building land close to the town centre.
Information panels have been put up at various places in the Grünzug, and they describe the histories of those locations, little evidence of which now remains.
Most of what is described on the panels was provided by the Weisseritz Local Initiative, a citizens’ group that is concerned with the town’s development.

Below is a map showing where the panels are located and two lists of the historical features that each describes. The panels along the Northern Route are in German and English, and these are listed with links to pages showing the English version. The panels on the Southern Route are in German only, as are the links from this list.
(As a guide to English readers, the German entries in this list are also given in English)

Northern Route (Orange)	Southern Route (Red)
1 The BRÜCKE Artist Group (*.pdf 352 KB)	1 Hofmühle Bienertmühle (*.pdf 444 KB) - the Bienert Royal Mill -
2 Karl August Lingnerʼs First Office (*.pdf 268 KB)	2 Hochplauensches Wasserhaus (*.pdf 776 KB) - Upper Plauen Waterworks Building -
3 House Loebtau (*.pdf 280 KB)	3 Bienertgarten (*.pdf 748 KB) - the Bienert Garden -
4 Albertstation - Coal Station (*.pdf 256 KB)	4 Naturschutz im Plauenschen Grund (900 KB) - nature conservancy in the Plauenscher Valley -
5 The former Siemens Glass Factory (*.pdf 268 KB)	5 Mühlgraben (*.pdf 808 KB) - millrace -
6 The Hangmanʻs Workplace (*.pdf 268 KB)	6 Ehemalige Dresdner Straße (*.pdf 340 KB) - the former Dresdner Strasse -
7 The "Weißeritzknick" (*.pdf 412 KB)	7 Hegereiterbrücke (*.pdf 768 KB) - the Hegereiter Bridge -
8 The Royal Weisseritz Wood-yard (*.pdf 720 KB)	8 Ehemaliger Plauener Bahnhof (*.pdf 760 KB) - the former Plauen Railway Station -
9 The BRÜCKE Artists in the Lamp Factory (*.pdf 296 KB)	9 Albertsbahn - the Albert Railway -
10 The former Loebtau Town Hall (*.pdf 388 KB)	10 Felsenkellerareal - the Felsenkeller -
11 The former Powder Mill (*.pdf 440 KB)	11 Buschmühle - the Busch Mill -
12 The “Vorwärts” [“Forwards”] Co-operative Food Factory (236 KB)	12 Eiswurmlager - cold storage caverns -
13 The Weisseritz Millrun (*.pdf 500 KB)	13 Felsenkellerbastei - the rock bulwarks of the Felsenkeller -
14 The Village of Altplauen (*.pdf 288 KB)	14 Hoher Stein (*.pdf 764 KB) - the “Hoher Stein” -
15 The former Reisewitz Park (*.pdf 256 KB)	15 Bienertparks (*.pdf 792 KB) - the Bienert Parks -
	16 Grabstätte Familie Bienert - the Bienert Family Tomb -

For further details about the progress and the results of the project see also

Responsible

Landeshauptstadt Dresden
Geschäftsbereich Stadtentwicklung
Stadtplanungsamt
Abteilung Stadterneuerung
Thomas Pieper

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Visitor address

Hamburger Straße 19
01067 Dresden

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Interactive City Map

Phone 0351-4883647
Fax 0351-4883816
email tpieper@dresden.de

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Postal address

Postfach 12 00 20
01001 Dresden

Representative

B·U·S – Büro für Umweltplanung und Stadtentwicklung

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Visitor address

Zittauer Straße 16

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Interactive City Map

Phone 0351-6568380
Fax 0351-6568389
email postmaster@bus-dresden.de
Website www.bus-dresden.de