CoalWorld - Museum of Coal Mining in Saxony

Coal in the area around Oelsnitz, 25 km south-west of Chemnitz was mined on a large scale between 1844 and 1971, although some had been extracted by farmers from their own fields in earlier times. Some 200 shafts were sunk in the district, ranging in depth from 9 m to 1200 m, the deepest of them known as the Frisch-Gluck-Schacht (the new luck shaft).

The museum is based in the Kaiserin-Augusta-Schacht (the Queen Augusta mine), which was sunk to a depth of 260 m in 1869. From 1946 the mine was named after the philosopher Karl Liebknecht. The museum was established from 1976 by former miners and was officially opened in 1986. From 2002 visitors have been able to take tours through all the surface buildings of what was once one of the largest collieries in Europe, including the headstocks, the dressing plant and the power house.