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)