Zwickau in the context of "Heinrich Schurtz"

The Mulde (German pronunciation: [ˈmʊldə] ) is a river in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is a left tributary of the Elbe and is 124 kilometres (77 mi) long.

The river is formed by the confluence, near Colditz, of the Zwickauer Mulde (running through Zwickau) and the Freiberger Mulde (with Freiberg on its banks), both rising from the Ore Mountains. From here the river runs northwards through Saxony (Grimma, Wurzen, Eilenburg, Bad Düben) and Saxony-Anhalt (Jeßnitz and Dessau, the old capital of Anhalt). The Mulde flows into the Elbe 3 kilometres (2 mi) north of Dessau.

Chemnitz (German: [ˈkɛmnɪts] ; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt [kaʁlˈmaʁksˌʃtat] (lit. 'Karl Marx City'); Upper Sorbian: Kamjenica [ˈkamʲɛnʲit͡sa]; Czech: Saská Kamenice) is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden, and the fourth-largest city in the area of the former East Germany after (East) Berlin, Leipzig, and Dresden.

The city lies in the middle of a string of cities sitting in the densely populated northern foreland of the Elster and Ore Mountains, stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast, and is part of the Central German Metropolitan Region. Located in the Ore Mountain Basin, the city is surrounded by the Ore Mountains to the south and the Central Saxon Hill Country to the north. The city stands on the Chemnitz River, which is formed through the confluence of the rivers Zwönitz and Würschnitz in the borough of Altchemnitz.

The Saxon Uplands, Saxon Hills or Ore Mountain Foreland (German: Erzgebirgsvorland) is a strip of countryside of about 200 m to 500 m above sea level (NN) high, in the German state of Saxony. It lies immediately north of the German Ore Mountains and runs mainly through the areas of Zwickauer Land, Zwickau, Chemnitzer Land, Chemnitz, Mittelsachsen and the country south of Dresden. It borders on the Upper Pleißeland to the extreme west, the Ore Mountain Basin in the south and the Mulde Loess Hills to the north and east.

Immediately north of the Western and Central Ore Mountains lie the cities of Zwickau and Chemnitz in the Ore Mountain Basin, whose western extension, the Upper Pleißeland is usually considered part of the basin today. Northeast of Chemnitz a narrow strip of land, the Mulde Loess Hills (Mulde-Lösshügelland) is squeezed in between the Dresden Basin (Elbtalkessel) and the eastern section of the Ore Mountains.

Robert Schumann (/ˈʃuːmɑːn/; German: [ˈʁoːbɛʁt ˈʃuːman]; 8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and music critic of the early Romantic era. He composed in all the main musical genres of the time, writing for solo piano, voice and piano, chamber groups, orchestra, choir and the opera. His works typify the spirit of the Romantic era in German music.

Schumann was born in Zwickau, Saxony, to an affluent middle-class family with no musical connections, and was initially unsure whether to pursue a career as a lawyer or to make a living as a pianist-composer. He studied law at the universities of Leipzig and Heidelberg but his main interests were music and Romantic literature. From 1829 he was a student of the piano teacher Friedrich Wieck, but his hopes for a career as a virtuoso pianist were frustrated by a worsening problem with his right hand, and he concentrated on composition. His early works were mainly piano pieces, including the large-scale Carnaval, Davidsbündlertänze (Dances of the League of David), Fantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces), Kreisleriana and Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood) (1834–1838). He was a co-founder of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Musical Journal) in 1834 and edited it for ten years. In his writing for the journal and in his music he distinguished between two contrasting aspects of his personality, dubbing these alter egos "Florestan" for his impetuous self and "Eusebius" for his gentle poetic side.

Plauen (German pronunciation: [ˈplaʊən] ; Upper Sorbian: Pławno; Czech: Plavno) is a town in Saxony, Germany with a population of around 65,000. It is Saxony's 5th most populated city after Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz and Zwickau, the second-largest city of the Vogtland after Gera, as well as the largest city in the Saxon Vogtland region (Sächsisches Vogtland).

The city lies on the upper reaches of the White Elster River, a tributary of the Saale, in the Central Vogtlandian Hill Country. Plauen is the southwesternmost city of a string of cities sitting in the densely populated foreland of the Elster and Ore Mountains, stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast. It is the county seat of the Vogtland District. Plauen directly borders Greiz in Thuringia to the north, and it is also situated near the Saxon border with Bavaria (Franconia) and the Czech Republic (Bohemia).

The Zwickauer Mulde (German pronunciation: [ˈtsvɪkaʊɐ ˈmʊldə]) is a river in Saxony, Germany. It is the left tributary of the Mulde and 166 km (103 mi) in length.

The source of the river is in the Ore Mountains, near Schöneck, in the Vogtlandkreis. It runs northeast to Aue, then northwest to Zwickau (hence the name), and further north through Glauchau, Rochlitz and Colditz. A few kilometers north of Colditz, the Zwickauer Mulde is joined by the Freiberger Mulde to form the united Mulde. The Mulde is a tributary of the Elbe.

Freiberg (German pronunciation: [ˈfʁaɪbɛʁk] ) is a university and former mining town in Saxony, Germany, with around 41,000 inhabitants. The city lies in the foreland of the Ore Mountains, in the Saxon urbanization axis, which runs along the northern edge of the Elster and Ore Mountains, stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast. It sits on the Freiberger Mulde, a tributary of the Mulde River. It is a Große Kreisstadt (large district town), and the administrative seat of Landkreis Mittelsachsen (district Central Saxony). Freiberg is connected to Dresden by the S3 line of the Dresden S-Bahn.

The entire historic center of the Silver City is under monument protection, and together with local monuments of mining history such as the Reiche Zeche ore mine, it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region since 2019 due to its exceptional testimony to the development of mining techniques across many centuries.

The Ore Mountain Basin or Erzgebirge Basin (German: Erzgebirgsbecken) is a natural region in the German federal state of Saxony, that is part of the Saxon Lowland. To the north it borders on the Mulde Loess Hills and to the south on several natural regions in the Saxon Highlands and Uplands.

The basin is a structural depression running from northeast to southwest in the Ore Mountain peneplain that is filled with Devonian and Carboniferous sediments. The main communications from the Ore Mountains follow the valleys downhill and are collected by a major routeway to the north that follows this furrow and passes through the cities of Zwickau and Chemnitz.

Thomas Müntzer (c. 1489 – 27 May 1525) was a German preacher and theologian of the early Reformation whose opposition to both Martin Luther and the Catholic Church led to his open defiance of late-feudal authority in central Germany. Müntzer was foremost amongst those reformers who took issue with Luther's compromises with feudal authority. He was a leader of the German peasant and plebeian uprising of 1525 commonly known as the German Peasants' War.

In 1514, Müntzer became a Catholic priest in Brunswick, where he began to question the teachings and practices of the Catholic Church. He then became a follower and acquaintance of Martin Luther, who recommended him for a post in Zwickau. His beliefs became increasingly spiritual and apocalyptic; by his arrival at Allstedt in 1523 he had completely broken with Luther. Amidst the peasant uprisings in 1525, Müntzer organized an armed militia in Mühlhausen. He was captured after the Battle of Frankenhausen, tortured and finally executed.