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The 'Misery of Pirna' (1756)
In the spring of 1639 Pirna went through the darkest period of its history. The Swedish field marshal Johan Banér was marching his army through Saxony towards Bohemia; after a short siege the Swedes stormed the town on 23 April 1639. What followed is still known today as the “Pirnaisches Elend” (the Misery of Pirna): plundering, murder and five months of occupation. Only the Sonnenstein fortress above the town held out – and in the end an apothecary saved Pirna from destruction.
Changing sides in 1635
In the Thirty Years’ War Saxony had at first fought alongside Sweden. With the Peace of Prague on 30 May 1635, Elector Johann Georg I went over to the Emperor’s side – and for the Swedes, Saxony was now enemy territory. On 14 April 1639 Banér defeated the Saxons near Chemnitz, failed before Freiberg and then moved up the Elbe towards Bohemia. His route took him right past Pirna.
The defence
As early as March 1638 the Elector had given Lieutenant Colonel Johann Siegmund von Liebenau command of the castle and town of Pirna. Liebenau had the walls repaired and – so that the enemy would find no cover – had the outer houses of the suburbs around the town moat burned down, along with the Nikolaikirche and the infirmaries: the people of Pirna sacrificed their own suburbs. Around 500 soldiers stood ready for the defence, along with armed citizens on the walls and at the gates.
The Sonnenstein holds
Liebenau rejected every demand to surrender. The Swedes bombarded the Sonnenstein, an assault failed – the fortress was never taken. Banér himself moved on into Bohemia in May, but regiments remained behind in Pirna; the occupation lasted until the end of September 1639, around five months. According to the old chronicle, of about 900 citizens barely a third survived – or at least, that is how the local historian Störzner told it in 1904.
The saviour
the apothecary Jacobäer: In September 1639 a rumour went round that the Swedes intended to destroy Pirna completely before they left. So Theophilus Jacobäer, the apothecary of the Löwenapotheke on the market square, rode to Dresden to see the Electoral Princess Magdalena Sibylle. He returned with a letter from her and handed it to Banér – and Pirna was spared. A memorial plaque on his house on the market square commemorates him, a street bears his name – and every September the people of Pirna re-enact his rescue on the market square: the local pageant “Der Retter” (The Saviour).
The neighbours
Königstein, Hohnstein, Stolpen, Bielatal: On their march to Bohemia in 1639, the Swedes burned down the town of Königstein; they did not dare to attack the fortress above it. The castles of Hohnstein and Stolpen withstood Swedish sieges. In the Bielatal the Reichstein hammer mill was put to the torch and only rebuilt in 1660, and the Hermsdorf outlying estate was destroyed. Legend has it that in 1639 a young woman fled from Banér’s soldiers onto the Bärenstein near Thürmsdorf and leapt to her death – ever since, the spot has been called the “Jungfernsprung” (Maiden’s Leap).
Afterwards and today
By 1644 Liebenau had had the castle courtyard, well, gates and walls restored; rebuilding the town took years. For Saxony, the war with Sweden only ended with the Armistice of Kötzschenbroda on 27 August 1645. Traces today: the cannonball in the Marienkirche, the Jacobäer plaque on the market square and the Sonnenstein, which the Swedes never took. At the Festung Königstein, actors re-enact the Swedish era in June at the historical spectacle – please check the date in advance.
As of: 10/2026
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