A little bit of Manchester …………. in Saxony ……. the city of Chemnitz

There will be those who question a story about a German city with the tenuous link that it was once known as Saxonian Manchester.

But Chemnitz, is also twinned with the city and has been since 1983.

For this and the story of Saxonian Manchester I have my friend Lyn to thank who back in the 1980s worked at Central Library and translated some of the documents relating to the forthcoming twinning agreement.

Back then Chemnitz, was known as Karl-Marx-Stadt, which was its name from 1953 till 1990.

Lyn remembers, “I met a woman from there at the twinning ceremony in Manchester Town Hall and we have stayed in touch over the years.  I went to Karl Marx Stadt in 1988 and stayed the night with her family and visited the city”.

And yesterday following up on that story she sent over the link to a newspaper story published in Germany about the city which  recently named “European capital of culture for 2025 meaning it beat off competition from Hanover, Nuremberg, Hildesheim and Magdeburg. Here are some fascinating facts about the city. 

The golden days for the city of Chemnitz came in the 19th century when it was one of the first German cities to embrace the revolutionary technology of steam power.

It won the moniker 'Saxonian Manchester'. This nickname wasn’t just a reference to the manifold factory chimneys, it was also a comment on the poor air quality in its streets. Just like in the English town, textiles were a central pillar of the local economy.

The city was a hub of invention - six times more patents were registered than the German average. And as industry took off, so too did the population. Chemnitz achieved the status of a Großstadt in 1883 when its population topped 100,000”.*

Großstadt roughly translates as big city, and today it is the third largest city in the German federal state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden. It is the 28th largest city of Germany.

So there you have it, I could quote more from the article, but where would the fun be in doing that when you can read the full account along with some fine pictures by following the link.

Location; Germany

Pictures; Chemnitz, 2013, Kora27, Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International, 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.

*5 things you should know about Chemnitz, the newly crowned capital of culture, The Local, October 29th, 2020, https://www.thelocal.de/20201029/5-things-you-should-know-about-chemnitz-the-newly-crowned-capital-of-culture?fbclid=IwAR17WxLB3cI_izDo3LDnBaq9FmMymtW95DiuMuLZcFwbWDZP7_qERFAw8CQ