POSTCARD N.144 - GERMANY

Postcrossing Postcard sent on the 25th June; received on the 1st July 2024

Postcard image: Zwickau landmarks
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Inside cover #480 Antje put a very musically minded postcard illustrated with several pictures of the city of Zwickau in the state of Saxony, which I gather was quite connected to the automotive industry, it being the city where Horch, which would become present day Audi, was founded and later VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau, the producer of the DDR auto icon Trabant, was headquartered.

But Zwickau was also important for being the birthplace of one of the great German Romantic composers, Robert Schumann, who saw the light of day there for the first time on 8  June, 1810, and would die in Endenich, Bonhn, on 29 July 1856.

Top to bottom, Left to right:

- The city hall and the adjacent jakobskapelle, located in the main market square (Hauptmarkt). The city wall war rebuilt to resurrect it from a fire that destroyed it in 1403, and was given its neo-gothic façade in 1866/67. The church, dating from 1473-77, still maintains its original form. 

- The monument to the city's most well known citizen, Robert Schumann, conceived by Johannes Hartmann (1869 - 1952)  was inaugurated in 1901,  and having been implanted in several locations is now back at its original place in the Hauptmarkt, since 1993.

- Kinderbrunnen, a fountain also located in the Hauptmarkt, designed by Berthold Dietz and inaugurated in 1968

- The statue of Thomas Muentzer, a preacher and a theologian of the Reformation, created by Jürgen Raue and unveiled to the public on the 500 anniversary of Munzer's birth, in May 1989.

- A fountain at the site of the former jewish market.

- Robert Schumann's house, the birthplace of the composer and pianist, also located in the Hauptmarkt.