Reichenbach

Reichenbach im Vogtland raised the woman who civilised the German stage. Friederike Caroline Neuber — "die Neuberin", the actress-manager who banished the crude Hanswurst from the theatre and allied herself with Gottsched to make German drama literary — was born here in 1697; her hometown honours her in the Neuberinhaus, the culture house bearing her name whose stages and museum room keep the reformer present, a provincial birthplace for a national institution.

The town's own drama was textile: a chief seat of the Vogtland's weaving and spinning centuries, its mills, dye-works and merchant villas building the streetscape — a heritage the region now tells cooperatively, with Reichenbach's park of generations (the former garden-show grounds) adding green amenity to the industrial fabric. The neighbourhood's engineering wonder stands minutes away: the Göltzschtalbrücke, the largest brick-built bridge in the world, marches its four storeys of arches across the valley — the railway's cathedral, visible from Reichenbach's heights and pilgrimage-worthy at its feet.

Around town, the Vogtland rolls its upland pastures toward music-instrument country and the Elster's spas, with Zwickau and Plauen as urban neighbours. Archive note: Germany counts several Reichenbachs (an der Fils, in the Odenwald, and others) — event records should be verified against venue and region. A stage reformer, a brick colossus, looms gone quiet: Reichenbach im Vogtland earns the definite article among its namesakes.