Bautzen

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Bautzen

Bautzen (bouˈtsən), city, Saxony, E Germany, on the Spree River. It is an industrial city, a rail junction, and the center of a kaolin-quarrying region. Manufactures include vehicles, iron products, electrochemical equipment, machinery, and textiles. Bautzen was founded in the 10th cent. and was contested in the 11th and 12th cent. by Poland, Meissen, Brandenburg, and Bohemia. It eventually passed to Bohemia, was burned (1634) in the Thirty Years War, and passed (1635) with Lusatia to Saxony. Noteworthy landmarks include a 13th-century church and numerous 18th-century buildings. In 1813, Napoleon I defeated a Russo-Prussian army nearby. In 1989 discoveries were made in the Bautzen prison complex of the largest mass grave of post–World War II Germany. The remains of more than 17,000 political prisoners from the Soviet occupation era after 1945 were found at the site.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Bautzen

(Lusatian name, Budissin), a city in the German Democratic Republic in Dresden District on the Spree River. Population, 44,000 (1969).

The major industries of Bautzen are the manufacture of railway cars and the production of radio and television equipment, polygraphic machines, textiles, and paper. The city arose on the site of an ancient settlement (which received its charter in 1213). Bautzen is now a cultural center of the Lusatians (Wends) in Upper Lusatia. The city has a Wendish institute with Wendish publications, a national theater, and an ensemble.

On May 8–9 (20–21), 1813, during the war of the sixth anti-French coalition against France, the army of Napoleon I (150,000–160,000 men) inflicted a defeat at Bautzen on the Russo-Prussian armies (93,000 men, including 28,000 Prussians) under the command of General P. H. Wittgenstein. Napoleon’s plan to surround the allies by a turning movement of their right flank was frustrated by the persistent resistance of the Russian corps of General M. B. Barclay de Tolly. The Russo-Prussian armies, threatened by a disengagement of the enemy at the rear, withdrew behind the Lebau River. After the battle at Bautzen, an armistice was concluded at Pläswitz (June 4–Aug. 10, 1813); this was, however, a strategic mistake for Napoleon because Austria and Sweden joined the anti-French coalition.

Bautzen

a city in E Germany, in Saxony: site of an indecisive battle in 1813 between Napoleon's army and an allied army of Russians and Prussians. Pop.: 42 160 (2003 est.)