The Obermittweida hammer mill was located below the junction of Kleiner Mittweida and Großer Mittweida. It was first mentioned in documents in 1546 as an ironworks with a slag heap. The owner, Matthes Schumann, also owned another ironworks, which was located downstream, at the mouth of the Roßbach. In contrast to many other Erzgebirge hammer mills, the owners of Obermittweida were not entitled to lower jurisdiction. However, they were privileged with the lower hunting rights. Obermittweida was under the jurisdiction of the Mittweida community.
Wolf von Elterlein took over the burnt-down mill in 1588, for which he received the concession to build a blast furnace in 1594. The hammer also owes its nicknames Wolfshammer or Hammer Löwenthal to him, because the von Elterlein family had a lion in their coat of arms.
After the facilities had been destroyed several times by floods (including in 1661) and fires (including in 1613, 1667, 1673 and 1724), Dr. Andreas Nietzsche acquired the hammer mill in 1731, which soon received the name Nietzschhammer, which is still used today. In 1788, there was a blast furnace, two fresh and rod fires, a sheet metal fire and a tin house in Obermittweida.[1] The ironworks was in operation until 1860. After that, the property was dismembered. A small shovel hut was still in operation until 1878, before the narrow valley floor became a center of paper production and wood grinding. The valley became known as a summer resort with the Casino Nitzschhammer convalescent home. The latter was used as a country year camp during the Second World War and as a children's convalescent home "Oskar Schieck" during the GDR era.
The area around the former hammer mill is now flooded by the lower basin of the Markersbach pumped storage power plant. The residents were resettled in 1968 and the buildings in the floodplain were demolished.
(Wikipedia)