Bautzen

Like other cities and places in Lusatia, Bautzen has several different names across languages. Its German name was also officially changed in 1868.

Besides Bautzen (German) and Budyšin (Upper Sorbian), the town has had the following names:

• German: Budissin (variants used from c. 11th century onwards; Saxon government changed to Bautzen on 3 June 1868)
• Lower Sorbian: Budyšyn [ˈbudɨʃɨn]
• Czech: Budyšín [ˈbudɪʃiːn]
• Polish: Budziszyn [buˈd͡ʑiʂɨn]

Bautzen town hall

The leaning Reichenturm

In the 3rd century AD an eastern Germanic settlement existed here, but excavations have proved that the region was already inhabited as early as the late Stone Age. Sorbs arrived in the area during the migration period in the 6th century AD.

The first written evidence of the city is from 1002 under the name Budusin (Upper Sorbian: Budyšin, Polish: Budziszyn).[6] In 1018 the Peace of Bautzen was signed between the German king Henry II and the Polish ruler Bolesław I the Brave. The treaty left the town under Polish rule. In 1032 it passed to the Margraviate of Meissen within the Holy Roman Empire, in 1075 to the Duchy of Bohemia, elevated to a kingdom in 1198 (with short periods of Brandenburgian and Hungarian rule), in 1635 to Saxony, whose electors were also Polish kings in personal union from 1697 to 1763. One of two main routes connecting Warsaw and Dresden ran through the town at that time.[7]

From 1346 to 1815, it was a member of the Six Cities' Alliance of the Upper Lusatian cities of Görlitz, Zittau, Löbau, Kamenz, Lauban, and Bautzen.

In 1429 and 1431 the town was unsuccessfully besieged by the Hussites.[6] In 1634, it was destroyed by the Swedes during the Thirty Years' War.[6] It was the site of one of the battlefields of the Napoleonic War Battle of Bautzen in 1813. In 1868, the name was officially changed from Budissin to the more Germanized form Bautzen.[6]

In 1839, the Sorbian student organization Societas Slavica Budissenensis was founded in the city. In 1845, the Sorbian national anthem was publicly performed for the first time in the city. The Sorbian House (Upper Sorbian: Serbski Dom), a Sorbian cultural centre, was opened in the city in 1904.[8]

After the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933, many political prisoners were held in the Bautzen I and Bautzen II prisons, built in 1904 and 1906, respectively.[6] During the Kristallnacht in 1938, local Jews were persecuted and Jewish-owned businesses were destroyed.[6] During World War II, the AL Bautzen subcamp of the Groß-Rosen concentration camp operated in Bautzen.[9] At least 600 men, mostly Poles, but also of other nationalities, were imprisoned there, about 310 of whom died.[9] Ernst Thälmann was imprisoned there before being deported to Buchenwald. In April 1945, the Germans evacuated many prisoners on foot to Nixdorf, where they were liberated by Polish troops on May 8, 1945, while the remaining prisoners were liberated in Bautzen by the Soviets on April 20, 1945.[9] Between 21 April and 30 April 1945, the Battle of Bautzen was fought which resulted in the town being recaptured by the German army.[10] This meant Bautzen and its surroundings stayed in German hands until Germany's capitulation.

From 1952 to 1990, Bautzen was part of the Bezirk Dresden of East Germany. Bautzen was infamous throughout East Germany for its two penitentiaries. "Bautzen I" was used as an official prison, soon to be nicknamed Gelbes Elend ("Yellow Misery") due to its outer colour, whereas the more secretive "Bautzen II" was used as a facility to hold political prisoners, dissidents and prisoners of conscience. Today, Bautzen I is known as the Bautzen Correctional Institution and is used to hold prisoners who are awaiting trial.[11] Bautzen II which was also operated by the GDR's Ministry for State Security, has served as an open memorial since 1993, operated by the Saxon Memorials Foundation. It is accessible to the public. Guided tours are provided and occasionally, films are screened.[12] A permanent exhibition depicts the misery suffered by occupants; visitors may tour detention cells, the isolation area and the yards where prisoners were allowed to exercise.[13]

In 2002 the city commemorated its 1000th birthday. In 2010 it was hit by a flood.[6]

Population development

Population development of Bautzen from 1871 to 2017

(as of December 31 unless otherwise stated)

• 1849 – 10,518
• 1868 – 12,623[14]
• 1875 – 14,709
• 1890 – 21,516
• 1933 – 41,951
• 1950 – 41,592 (as of August 31)
• 1960 – 41,613
• 1984 – 51,208
• 1995 – 44,763
• 2000 – 43,353
• 2005 – 42,150
• 2010 – 40,573
• 2015 – 40,501
• 2020 – 38.006

The Bautzen City Council consists of 34 members. It meets either in the Town Hall or in the Gewandhaus. There are also four local councils (Niederkaina, Stiebitz, Kleinwelka, and Salzenforst-Bolbritz), whose honorary members are elected for five years.

Old Waterworks and Church of St. Michael

Bautzen has a very compact and well-preserved medieval town centre with numerous churches and towers and a city wall on the steep embankment to the river Spree, with one of the oldest preserved waterworks in central Europe (built 1558).

Sites of interest include:

• The Reichenturm, one of the steepest leaning and still passable towers north of the Alps
• Ortenburg Castle
• The Old Waterworks, an architectural monument and museum
• Saint Peter's Cathedral, Eastern Germany's only historic interdenominational church edifice
• Hexenhaus (Witch's House), oldest preserved residential building (built in 1604)

There are six museums in Bautzen, including the Stadtmuseum Bautzen ("Bautzen city Museum"), the Sorbisches Museum ("Sorbian Museum", Sorbian: Serbski muzej) and the Senfmuseum (Mustard Museum).

Sorbian House (Serbski dom), headquarters of various Sorbian organizations

Sorbian Museum (Serbski muzej)

Sorbian gymnasium (Serbski gymnazij)

Sorbian Institute (Serbski institut)

Bautzen is the seat of several institutions of the cultural self-administration of the Sorbian people:

• Foundation for the Sorbian People (Stiftung für das sorbische Volk, Załožba za serbski lud)
• Domowina (poet. Sorbian for „Homeland“, actually: Zwjazk Łužiskich Serbow z. t., Bund Lausitzer Sorben e. V.) – the umbrella organization of Sorbian cultural associations and institutions
• Sorbian Institute (Serbski institut)
• Sorbian Radio (Serbski rozhłós) [15]
• Sorbian National Ensemble and the German-Sorbian People's Theater (Němsko-serbske ludowe dźiwadło)
• Bautzen Sorbian Boarding School

Alstom Transportation operates a large factory on Fabrikstraße making railway locomotives, carriages and trams. It was built by the former VEB Waggonbau Bautzen, which was acquired by Bombardier Transportation in 1998 via Deutsche Waggonbau and acquired by Alstom when Bombardier Transportation was sold by parent Bombardier Inc. in 2021.

The mustard Bautz'ner Senf is produced in Bautzen. It is the market leader in the new states of Germany with a market share of 65 percent.[16]

Hermann Lotze

Hans Unger self-portrait

• Walter von Boetticher (1853–1945), historian and physician
• Karl Gustav Brescius (1824–1864), railway engineer
• Rudolf Buchheim (1820–1879), German pharmacologist
• Wilhelm Buck (1869–1945), Prime Minister of the Free State of Saxony
• Friedrich August Carus (1770–1807), psychologist and philosopher
• Kurt Dinter (1868–1945), botanist and explorer in South West Africa
• Werner von Erdmannsdorff (1891–1945), General of Infantry in World War II
• Will Grohmann (1887–1968), art historian and art critic
• Erhard Heinz (1924–2017), mathematician
• Hermann Hunger (born 1942), Austrian assyriologist
• Stefanie Kloß (born 1984), lead singer of pop rock band Silbermond
• Hermann Lotze (1817–1881), German philosopher and logician
• August Gottlieb Meißner (1753–1807), writer, founder of the German crime novel
• Harald Metzkes (born 1929), painter and graphic artist
• Juro Mětšk (1954–2022), composer
• Ferdinand Neuling (1885–1960), General of Infantry in World War II
• Caspar Peucer (1525–1602), German-Sorbian reformer, physician and scholar
• Charles Gottlieb Raue (1820–1896), American homeopathic physician
• Georg-Hans Reinhardt (1887–1963), Colonel-General of the German Wehrmacht
• Simone Ritscher (born 1959), actress
• Friedrich Wilhelm Ehrenfried Rost (1768–1835), theologian and philosopher
• Hans von Tettau (1888–1956), infantry General
• Hans Unger (1872–1936), painter
• Karl Friedrich Gottlob Wetzel (1779–1819), writer
• Handrij Zejler (1804–1872), born in the district Salzenforst, founder of modern Sorbian poetry

Bautzen is twinned with:[17]

• Worms, Germany (1990)
• Heidelberg, Germany (1991)
• Dreux, France (1992)
• Jablonec nad Nisou, Czech Republic (1993)
• Jelenia Góra, Poland (1993)

Panorama of Bautzen viewed from the Peace Bridge

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bautzen.

• Bautzen travel guide from Wikivoyage
• Official website
• Interactive sightseeing tour through Bautzen (German)
• "Bautzen" . New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
• "Bautzen" . Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.