Once known as
Ostra, a
Sorbian village going back to the year 1206, it was then turned into a manor farm for the
elector's residence in Dresden.
Augustus II the Strong of
Saxony renamed the area
Neustadt in 1730. This Neustadt should not be confused with the neighborhood in Dresden now known as
Neustadt, then called
Neue Königstadt. In 1731, the people of Neustadt again renamed their settlement, this time to
Friedrichstadt after Augustus the Strong's son, future elector
Frederick Augustus II, known in German as
Friedrich August II. After the dawn of the
Industrial Revolution, the city declared Friedrichstadt a factory district in 1878. The plight of the factory workers in this area became a common theme in the works of the artists of Die Brücke, who set up a studio in a former cobbler's shop. A good deal of the Friedrichstadt was destroyed in the
bombing on 13–14 February 1945. Many of the neighborhood's attractions have been rebuilt since then. Today Friedrichstadt is a mixed industrial, commercial, and residential neighborhood with almost 6,000 residents. == Attractions ==