Schwarzenberg is a town in the district of Erzgebirgskreis in Saxony’s Ore Mountains, near the German–Czech border. The town lies roughly 15 km southeast of Aue, and 35 km southwest of Chemnitz. Founded in the 12th century to protect a trade road, the small mountain town became the centre of a territory known as Herrschaft Schwarzenberg and later Amt Schwarzenberg. During the division of Germany, Schwarzenberg was part of East Germany and became the greatest producer of washing machines in Eastern Europe. Schwarzenberg became more widely known in 1987, when Stefan Heym coined the term Free Republic of Schwarzenberg for a small gap between the Soviet and American occupation zones in May/June 1945. Geography Schwarzenberg is in the southwestern Ore Mountains. It lies at elevations stretching from above sea level. The Old Town with church and castle is located on a rock (the Schlossberg, ) around which a meander of the River Schwarzwasser has formed; the Mittweida flows into the Schwarzwasser inside the town. However, the town's overall situation is in a basin. The most prominent peaks surrounding it, in addition to the Schlossberg, are the Hirschstein (), the Hohe Hahn (), the Hohe Henne (), the Rockelmann (), the Galgenberg () and the Raschau Knochen (). Geology The town's silhouette is marked by the opposing rocks Ottenstein and Totenstein, which like the Schlossberg consist of Augen gneiss. Other stones include quartz (only some of it pure as rock crystal), biotite, muscovite and feldspar. The Schwarzenberg mining area is pervaded by ore veins of complex origin. Skarn deposits contain magnetite, iron pyrite, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite and galena. The ore deposits are up to 6 metres thick and permeated by silver and cobalt minerals as well as cassiterite. Constituent communities The Old Town with market square, castle and St.-Georgen-Kirche (main church) forms the town's historical core. The Vorstadt was originally a southward extension outside the (now vanished) town walls, originally formed around a mill. Late 19th century factories and workers' housing around the station became the Neustadt north of the Old Town, now housing the civic centre with town hall and employment centre. North-west and south-west of the Old Town, the Hofgarten and Heide low-rise residential areas were built in the 1960s and 1970s, respectively, using large-block construction (a precursor of plattenbau construction). The plattenbau residential area Sonnenleithe at the town's northern border was built in the 1980s. Although the town