Neumannmühle, Technical monument and watermill in Sebnitz, Germany
The Neumannmühle is a sawmill and technical monument at the mouth of the Große Zschand into the Kirnitzsch valley, in the Ottendorf district of Sebnitz. Its overshot water wheel, 4.80 metres in diameter and renewed in 2023, drives the original 1870 wood-pulping equipment, which visitors can see in operation.
A mill at this site is first documented in 1576, when a Hohnstein office register listed two board mills at the mouth of the Große Zschand, the Neumannmühle and the neighbouring Buschmühle. The Neumann family acquired it in 1791 through Joseph Neumann, and it has remained in their possession since. In 1872 a road was built through the Kirnitzsch valley and across the millyard, and Christian Wilhelm Neumann used the improved access to install a wood-pulp grinding plant, probably bought second-hand, in an extension to the sawmill building.
The name Neumannmühle comes from the Bohemian sawyer Joseph Neumann, who bought the mill in 1791; his descendants ran it until 1945. Since 1998 the association Schauanlage Neumannmühle e. V. has operated the site. The preserved wood-grinding equipment, in use until 1945, recalls Friedrich Gottlob Keller, inventor of the wood-pulp process.
The site is easy to reach by foot and the machinery can be observed in operation. Plan to spend about two hours to fully understand how the facility works.
The water wheel was renewed in 2023 at a cost of about 40,000 euros. The weir, once built for timber rafting, was converted into a rough ramp in 2002 to help reintroduce salmon, and its drop is now so gentle that visitors barely notice it.
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