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History of the Bielatal
This quiet valley has seen a thing or two: in 1836 a robber gang from Bohemia raided what is now the Ottomühle, people hid in caves such as the Schwedenloch in times of war, in 1639 the Swedes burned down Hermsdorf and the Reichstein hammer, and in 1813 Napoleon's soldiers were camped on the heights all around. On top of that there's a cave inscription that turned out to be a forgery, and a border that was fought over for centuries.
The raid on the Ottomühle in 1836
On the night of 22 to 23 September 1836, about eight armed men broke into Samuel Geißler's mill – today's Ottomühle – by way of the board mill. They were well dressed and spoke a Bohemian dialect. They beat the eldest son unconscious and tied him up, brutally mistreated the miller and stabbed the youngest son, leaving him with life-threatening injuries. The daughter was spared because she begged for mercy. Then the robbers ransacked the house and made off with money, jewellery and clothes.
The hunt for the robbers
The Pirna court office made the raid public in the “Pirnaer Anzeiger” and offered a reward of 200 thalers for information. Whether the culprits were ever caught is not known. At the time, gangs of robbers and smugglers were up to no good in the border country, such as the “Pschüraer Bande” from the Tetschen area, whose motto was “Den Reichen zum Trutz und den Armen zum Nutz” – “To spite the rich and help the poor” – but whether it was them has never been proven. The story was rediscovered by the Sebnitz local historian Manfred Schober.
How the Ottomühle got its name
In the 18th century the mill was also called the “Zaunknechtsmühle”, and in 1836, after its owner, the Geißler'sche Mühle. Around 1880 it passed to the Otto family – hence Ottomühle. In 1886 a tavern opened, and in 1910 today's inn with its veranda was built; the wooden mill wheel, four metres in diameter, was taken down in 1973/74. In GDR times the house was a holiday home of the Chamber of Crafts; after standing empty for a long time, it reopened in 2004.
The Bennohöhle and its fake inscription
South of the Ottomühle, at the turn-off into the Glasergrund, lies the Bennohöhle, a fissure cave about 35 metres long between blocks of sandstone. In 1824 the head forester Puttrich, the Wormsmühle miller Ehrlich and the Schweizermühle miller Geißler made it accessible to visitors. On the back wall is written “M.v.Donjn 1401. Benno” beside a chalice – supposedly a member of the Dohna family had hidden here during the Dohna Feud. But the inscription is a forgery, probably by the very men who opened up the cave: the figure 4 is carved in its modern form.
Hiding places in wartime
Right next to the Bennohöhle are the Schwedenloch and the Eisloch, the Ice Hole, where snow can linger even in June. In times of war people hid there with their belongings – and the name Schwedenloch, the Swedes' Hole, tells you who they were hiding from. Not far from the Schweizermühle there's a Franzosenloch, a Frenchmen's Hole, and on the border the Zwergenhöhle, the Dwarfs' Cave, which already appears on maps in the 16th century. The deepest is the Tiefe Höhle, only discovered around 1967 – 22 metres deep, and only for climbers and cavers.
The border with Bohemia
Rosenthal belonged to Bohemia for a long time: in 1356 it is named by the archiepiscopal chancery in Prague, and in 1456 a charter describes for the first time the border between the Saxon administrative district of Königstein and the Bohemian “dorffe Rosentall”, the village of Rosenthal. In 1459 the Treaty of Eger fixed the border – one of the oldest borders in Europe still in existence today – and in 1503 Rosenthal finally came to Saxony through an exchange of territory between Saxony and Bohemia; the deed of exchange calls it “Rozmital”. The Hammergut at Neidberg was already Saxon before then, which made it the last Saxon outpost before Bohemia. The forest boundary stones with crossed swords that you'll find in the woods date from after 1781, when the Elector had the border precisely surveyed.
The Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War hit the valley hard: in 1639 Swedish troops destroyed the Hermsdorf farmstead, through which the “Hohe Straße”, the High Road to Bohemia, ran, and pillaged and burned the Reichstein hammer; it was not rebuilt until 1660. Over in Bohemia, Croatian troops had already burned down Tyssa in 1631, and the Swedes then plundered whatever was left.
Napoleon, the Napoleonstein and the Cossacks in 1813
In September 1813 a large French camp lay on the Breite Heide near Langenhennersdorf, secured by earthworks – the remains are known today as the “Franzosenschanzen”, the French entrenchments. In those days Napoleon himself was very close by: in Liebstadt, Breitenau, on the Nollendorf heights, in Gießhübel and in Pirna. He is said to have watched his troops from the Napoleonstein, and a cannonball is said to have narrowly missed him – that is tradition. What is documented, on the other hand, is that in 1813 Cossacks badly plundered Rosenthal and its church.
Disputes over wood, water and rags
The hammer works needed enormous quantities of wood – and the wood belonged to the Elector. The blast furnace at the Oberhütte was shut down in 1726 for lack of wood, and at Brausenstein too the fire went out in the 18th century, when the new forestry policy set out to spare the woods. Down in Hütten there was a lawsuit in 1577: the Freiberg papermaker Hieronymus Schaffhirt sued Georg Schwarz because his new paper mill was collecting rags in Schaffhirt's territory. And time and again the Biela itself struck – with floods in 1552, 1617, 1897 and in August 2002.
The world's first summit register
The valley also made climbing history: on 13 August 1891 Oscar Schuster made the first ascent, alone, of the tower in the Bielatal later named after him, the Schusterturm. When he stood on top again in 1893 with Fritz Böhme, he left a “visitors' book in a tin case” – probably the first summit register in the world. Today the Bielatal has 239 climbing summits.
As of: 10/2026
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