Röcknitz – a village in changing times

Supervolcanoes – the hot origins of porphyry country

Around 287 million years ago, the Wurzen region was located south of the equator on the continent of Pangaea. The area was characterised by massive volcanism, which constantly changed the landscape over a period of two million years and left behind a collapse structure (Wurzen caldera). Today the solidfied volcanic rocks form a layer upto 600 m thick covering the Geopark area and are highly visible as the Hohburg Mountains.
Around 25 to 20 million years ago, the waves of the Tertiary primeval North Sea crashed against these rocks. Lignite developed from deposits in coastal moors.
During the Ice Age between 400,000 and 126,000 years ago, the glaciers of the northern European glaciations repeatedly advanced over the area and gave the present landscape its ‘finishing touches’. The porphyry mountains modelled by water, wind and ice have been used by man for a good 500 years to this day: the hard volcanic rock is extracted from quarries as a building material.

Hohburg quartz porphyry volcanic rock – the material of progress

The local population has been extracting porphyry rock for its own needs since at least the 16th century. Industrial stone quarrying began on the Röcknitz Steinberg in 1887. Further quarries followed on the neighbouring Spielberg, Gaudlitzberg, Zinkenberg, Frauenberg and Löbenberg until 1893. Initially paving and building stones were produced, but later chippings were used as aggregate for the increasingly fashionable asphalt roads. ‘Stone into bread’ was the name given to the economic boom at the time.

The farming and quarry worker’s village of Röcknitz

Röcknitz (Rokenitz, Rokytnica: ‘place where there are willows’) and Treben (Drewan, Drevane: ‘people at the wood’) were incorporated into one village in 1936. Elbe Germanic tribes, Slavs and, from the 12th century onwards, German people settled here. With the start of industrial stone extraction between Röcknitz and Hohburg 140 years ago, the old farming village also became a village of quarrymen. Labourers from various trades found work and housing here. Within five decades, the population rose from 815 to 1,363. The history of the Röcknitz stone industry lasted until the 1960s.

GeoRoute ‘Röcknitz Trail of Rocks’

A 2.5 kilometre walk in the footsteps of porphyry rock and Nordic erratic blocks.
Stations
1 – Röcknitz geoportal
2 – Former quarries on the Steinberg
3 – Track of the private railway from 1896-1927
4 – Steinbach
5 – Church of St Nicholas with natural stone walls
6 – Former home of the quarry manager
7 – Memorial stone for the quarry industry
8 – Fred Porphyrstein’ volcano playground at the GeoExperienceGarden

The railway – the engine driving the economy of the quarry industry

The connection to the long-distance railway network was an important economic factor for the expansion of the quarries south of Röcknitz. In 1896, Adolf Freiherr von Schönberg had a standard-gauge railway line built to Doberschütz at Thammenhain Castle, which was responsible for quarrying on the Zinkenberg and Gaudlitzberg. Thanks to the connection to the Prussian state railway Halle-Guben-Sorau, cobblestones could be transported to Berlin and northern Germany. After the opening of the Saxon railway line Wurzen-Eilenburg in 1927, the line was closed.

Concept and texts: in cooperation with the local history association Röcknitz-Treben e.V. (Ralph Schubert) and GeoRanger Grit Lettner
Photos: Archive of the Röcknitz Heritage Society, Grit Lettner

Captions

  • The Wurzen eruption produced kilometre-high eruption columns of magma, ash and gas – seen here at the Bromo volcano on Java (Indonesia).
  • Geoportal Röcknitz: The exhibitions ‘Supervolcanoes in Saxony’ and ‘Time-Change-Stone’, the GeoExperienceGarden and the ‘Fred Porphyry Stone’
    volcano playground trace 290 million years of landscape development.
  • Profile section showing the bedding and age of the rock strata near Röcknitz.
  • The Romanesque basilica in Röcknitz was built around 1150, presumably using porphyry rock from the region.
  • Hohburg quartz porphyry from the Zinkenberg quarry.
  • View over the Steinberg to the quarry on Gaudlitzberg in 1928).
  • In the coat of arms of Röcknitz: Above the swan from the coat of arms of the former owners of the manor are ploughshares representing the farming village and mallets and irons (miners‘ tools) symbolizing the quarry industry.
  • Local porphyry and Nordic rocks (erratic blocks), transported by the ice-age glaciers, were used for the wall at St Nicholas‘ Church.
  • A memorial stone was erected in Röcknitz in 2000 to commemorate the quarry industry.
  • Map of the railway siding from Doberschütz to the quarries near Röcknitz from 1900.
  • Loading point at Steinberg quarry in 1901: the stones are tipped from the quarry wagons onto the railway wagons.
  • Production and railway transport volumes of Hohburger Quarz-Porphyr-Werke AG Röcknitz until 1919.
  • The Reichsbahn railway network around Wurzen with connecting lines (highlighted in yellow) to the porphyry quarries (map from 1933).

Timeline

1965: Final closure of the quarries on the Röcknitz Steinberg
1953: Opening of the vocational school on the Steinberg
1946: Nationalisation of the quarry companies
1932-34: Reconstruction of the gravel works and construction of a new chippings plant on the Zinkenberg
1925: Construction of the ballast plant on the Zinkenberg in concrete construction
1901: Use of pneumatic drilling machines in the quarry
1908: Electrification of the Röcknitz-Treben villages
1899: Foundation of Hohburger Quarz-Porphyr-Werke AG Röcknitz
1896: Construction of the private railway line from Röcknitz to Doberschütz
1887: Start of industrial stone quarrying on the Steinberg
1586: Quarry on the Röcknitz Steinberg on the first map of Saxony