In the city of Meissen, in the federal state of Saxony, eastern Germany

 "To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization. For one has to remember that it is not only Germany that has been blitzed. The same desolation extends, at any rate in considerable patches, all the way from Brussels to Stalingrad." -- George Orwell, ‘Future of a ruined Germany' (published in 1945)

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(in southeastern eastern Germany) The city of Meissen, in the federal state of Saxony, is found on the Elbe River about 25 kilometers (~16 mi.) northwest of Dresden. Like so many places all over Europe, the city has managed to survive more than a thousand years of disruptive military, political, religious, and cultural turbulence (not to mention persistent plagues). Today, Meissen is often called the "cradle of Saxony." It grew out of the early West Slavic settlement of Misni, inhabited by the Glomacze tribe (Polabian Slavs inhabiting areas in the middle Elbe valley), and was founded as a German town by King Henry I (the Fowler) in 929. The Diocese of Meissen was founded in 968, and Meissen became the episcopal see of a bishop. The Catholic bishopric was suppressed in 1581 after the diocese accepted the Protestant Reformation (in1559), but re-created in 1921 with its seat first at Bautzen (a town in eastern Saxony on the Spree River), and now at the Katholische Hofkirche in Dresden.

+ In the year 968 Meissen had also become the seat of the margravate of Meissen. A market town by 1000, Meissen passed to the Duchy of Poland in 1002 under Boleslaw I the Brave, afterwards into hands of Henry II a few months later and to the House of Wettin in 1089. Meissen was chartered in 1205, when it was a bastion of the German colonization of the Slavic lands east of the Elbe. (Indeed, the town was at the forefront of the Ostsiedlung, or intensive German settlement of the rural Slavic lands east of the Elbe.) In 1241, the town was attacked in the Mongol raid on Meissen. (The Mongol force under Orda Khan defeated Meissen's defenders and much of the town was destroyed.) The Mongols withdrew from Germany after the death of Ögedei Khan, sparing the region from further destruction (i.e., for a while). Although Meissen became capital of the Electorate of Saxony in 1423, the the capital was moved to Dresden in 1464. In 1759, the Austrians defeated the Prussians at the Battle of Meissen.) During World War II, a subcamp of Flossenbürg concentration camp was located in Meissen.)

+ Meissen is now perhaps best known for the manufacture of porcelain (the production of which dates from the early 18th century), based on extensive local deposits of china clay (kaolin) and potter’s clay (potter’s earth). Other ceramics are also manufactured, and wine is also produced. The city is dominated by a group of 13th- and 14th-century Gothic cathedral structures (including the Gothic Meissen Cathedral and the Meissen Frauenkirche {Church of Our Lady]) -- and by Albrechtsburg castle.