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21

Finally!

Every year at winter solstice the mountaineers choir “Kurt Schlosser” sings at the fairground in Kleinhennersdorf. And yes, the choir – founded in 1927, renamed in 1949 and probably well known to those who grew up in the GDR – still exists today.
Besides working as a carpenter Kurt Schlosser was head of the singing department of the United Mountaineering Department that later became the Saxon Mountaineers Choir. During the Nazi rule he was part of the illegal resistance; in order to distract his pursuers he became a member of the German-Austrian Alpine Association in 1937 and built a mountain shelter above the Zahnsgrund in Saxon Switzerland that until 1995 was named after him. In 1944 he was sentenced to death for high treason and was killed in Dresden. A “Stolperstein” (stumbling block) in front of his carpenter’s workshop in Leipziger Strasse 72 commemorates the courageous singer.

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16

The smallest climbing rock in the world

The first ascent of the sandstone boulder that crashed onto the Kirnitzschtalstraße in 2014 was a spectacular event. For one day the 50 tons of stone added another peak to the mountainscape before they were smashed with heavy machines. Due to its short existance the rock was called “Eintagsfliege” (Ephemera). the 32,7 metre high rock was conquered by the members of the mountaineering club Buschmühleover night; the took the most difficult, challenging route which they named “HO-Pico-Kante” and was crowned with a summit log that each of the summiteers signed. The cartographer Böhm, one of the most prolific producer of maps of Saxon Switzerland, eternalised their climbing routes during the same night in a map.

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6

Tri tra trallala

in the small Museum of Puppet Theatre in Hohnstein an interval sign hangs from the neck of the devil. Since 1928 Kasper (Punch), Grandma and many other characters have every evening drawn viewers to the theatres, Kasper always at the head – not dispensing thrashings with the frying pan but solving problems with sublime wit. For this the Hohnsteiner puppeteers received a gold medal at the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris. Give it up for Kasper!