Beginnings The area was sparsely settled by Slavic tribes related to the modern Sorbs. The placename is first attested for the eponymous local river (1012/18: "Caminizi fluvium"). In 1143, a
Benedictine monastery at "Kameniz" was founded, around which a settlement grew. Around 1170, the town was granted the rights of a
free imperial city by emperor
Frederick I.
Meissen and Saxony In 1307, the town became subordinate to the
Margraviate of Meissen, the predecessor of the Saxon state. In
medieval times, Chemnitz became a centre of textile production and trade. More than one-third of the population worked in textile production. In 1356, the Margraviate was succeeded by the
Electorate of Saxony. Geologist
Georgius Agricola (1494–1555), author of several significant works on mining and
metallurgy, including the landmark treatise
De Re Metallica, became
city physician of Chemnitz in 1533 and lived here until his death in 1555. In 1546, he was elected a Burgher of Chemnitz, and in the same year, was also appointed Burgomaster (lord mayor), serving again in 1547, 1551, and 1553. Despite having been a leading citizen of the city, when Agricola died in 1555, the Protestant Duke denied him burial in the city's cathedral due to Agricola's allegiance to his Roman Catholic faith. Agricola's friends arranged for his remains to be buried in more sympathetic
Zeitz, approximately 50 km away. Chemnitz became a famous trading and textile manufacturing town. In 1806, with the end of the
Holy Roman Empire, the Electorate was renamed as the
Kingdom of Saxony, and this survived until the revolutions of 1918, which followed the Armistice ending the
First World War. By the early 19th century, Chemnitz had become an industrial centre (sometimes called "the Saxon
Manchester", , ). Important industrial companies were founded by
Richard Hartmann, Louis Schönherr and Johann von Zimmermann. Chemnitz became a centre of innovation in the kingdom of Saxony and later in Germany. In 1913, Chemnitz had a population of 320,000 and, like Leipzig and Dresden, was larger at that time than today. After losing inhabitants due to the
First World War, Chemnitz grew rapidly again and reached its all-time peak of 360,250 inhabitants in 1930. Thereafter, growth was stalled by the
world economic crisis.
Weimar Republic As a working-class industrial city, Chemnitz was a powerful center of socialist political organization after the First World War. At the foundation of the German Communist Party the local
Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany voted by 1,000 votes to three to break from the party and join the Communist Party behind their local leaders,
Fritz Heckert and
Heinrich Brandler. In March 1919 the German Communist Party had over 10,000 members in the city of Chemnitz. Chemnitz was one of the big German industrial centers. Due to the export traffic a modern marshalling yard was erected 1929 in Chemnitz-Hilbersdorf. At that time it was a leading city in the European textile market.
Auto Union (today Audi) was founded 1932 in Chemnitz.
World War II Allied bombing destroyed 41 per cent of the built-up area of Chemnitz during the
Second World War. Chemnitz contained factories that produced military hardware and a
Flossenbürg forced labor subcamp (500 female inmates) for
Astra-Werke AG. The
oil refinery was a target for bombers during the
Oil Campaign of World War II, and
Operation Thunderclap attacks included the following raids: •
14/15 February 1945: The first major raid on Chemnitz used 717
RAF bombers, but due to cloud cover most bombs fell over open countryside. •
2/3–5 March:
USAAF bombers attacked the marshalling yards. •
5 March: 705 RAF bombers attacked. The city was occupied by Soviet troops on 8 May 1945. The headquarters of the auto manufacturer
Auto Union was based in Chemnitz from 1932 and its buildings were badly damaged. At the end of the war, the company's executives fled and relocated the company to
Ingolstadt, Bavaria, where it evolved into
Audi, now a brand within the Volkswagen group. The World War II bombings left most of the city centre in ruins and
post-war, the East German reconstruction included large low-rise (and later high-rise ) housing. Some tourist sites were reconstructed during the
East German era and after
German reunification. Today over 50% of the city´s buildings date back to before 1950.
GDR After the dissolution of the Länder (states) in the GDR in 1952, Chemnitz became seat of a district (). On 10 May 1953, the city was renamed by decision of the East German government to () after
Karl Marx, in recognition of its industrial heritage and the
Karl Marx Year marking the 135th anniversary of his birth and the 70th anniversary of his death.
GDR Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl said: After the city centre was destroyed in
World War II, the East German authorities attempted to rebuild it to symbolise the conceptions of urban development of a socialist city. The layout of the city centre at that time was rejected in favour of a new road network. However, the original plans were not completed. In addition, the rapid development of housing took priority over the preservation of old buildings. So in the 1960s and 1970s, both in the centre as well as the periphery, large areas were built in apartment-block style, for example . The old buildings of the period, which still existed especially in the
Kassberg, and quarters, were neglected and fell increasingly into dereliction.
After reunification On 23 April 1990, a referendum on the future name of the city was held: 76% of the voters voted for the old name "". On 1 June 1990, the city was officially renamed. After the
reunification of Germany on 3 October 1990, the city of Chemnitz faced several difficult tasks. Many inhabitants migrated to the former West Germany, and unemployment in the region increased sharply; in addition, Chemnitz did not have adequate shopping facilities, but this was increasingly demanded. Large shopping centers were constructed around the city's periphery in the early 1990s. Chemnitz is the only major German city whose centre was re-planned after 1990, similar to the reconstruction of several other German cities in the immediate post-war years. Plans for the recovery of a compressed city centre around the historic town hall in 1991 led to an urban design competition. This was announced internationally by the city and carried out with the help of the partner city of . The mooted project on an essentially unused area of the former city would be comparable in circumference to the in Berlin. Between 1990 and 2007, more than 250 buildings were leveled. In late August 2018, the city was the site of a series of
protests that an estimated 8,000
right-wing and
nationalist protestors and an estimated 1,500
left-wing counter-protesters, with violent clashes occurring between them, leading to injuries, and the local police presence was outnumbered. The protests started after two immigrants, from
Syria and
Iraq, were arrested in connection with the murder of Daniel H., a 35-year-old German man, the son of a German mother and a Cuban father, which had happened on 26 August. In August 2019, Alaa Sheikhi (Syrian national) was sentenced to nine years and six months in prison for manslaughter and dangerous bodily harm. Yousif A. (Iraqi national) was arrested in August 2018 alongside Sheikhi. However, he was released from custody in September 2018 after prosecutors found no evidence linking him to the crime. An international arrest warrant was issued for a second suspect, Farhad A. (Iraqi national), who fled the country and has not been brought to trial. The reports of mob violence and riots were criticized as incorrect later on. The German language Swiss newspaper
Neue Zürcher Zeitung corrected its earlier reports, stating that there had evidently been no mob violence, but there have been sporadic encroachments. Minister President of Saxony Michael Kretschmer came to the same conclusion: "there were no mobs and man hunts". One week after the protests, a free "Concert against the Right" under the motto "We are more" (#wirsindmehr) attracted an audience reported to be of 65,000 people. A one-minute silence commemorated the murdered Daniel H., the son of a German mother and a Cuban father. The concert itself has been criticized for
far-left activities and violent song texts of some of the participating bands. ==Culture and sights==