The Pulsnitz is a left tributary of the Black Elster in Saxony and Brandenburg. It rises in Ohorn on the western slope of the Tanneberg and flows through the towns of Pulsnitz, Königsbrück, Ortrand and Elsterwerda.
The actual spring is in the basement of a residential building, below which a pond catches the spring water. A plaque on the inflow pipe bears the inscription “Pulsnitzquelle VMI 1976”. The Pulsnitz runs underground through the entire old town center of Ohorn and only reappears about 900 meters to the south-west and about 50 meters below at the edge of a field.
It then flows through the Königsbrücker Heide, where the Königsbrück military training area was located between 1906 and 1992 and the market town of Kraków an der Pulsnitz until 1938. After passing through the lowland area of Schraden, which begins near the outskirts of the town, it flows into the Black Elster in the urban area of Elsterwerda. A few hundred meters before is the connection to the Elsterwerda-Grödel-Floßkanal, an artificial waterway that has existed since the 18th century to the town of Grödel on the Elbe.
However, the original estuary was below the village of Tettau until the New Pulsnitzgraben was built in the 16th century. This course, known as Grenzpulsnitz, once formed the national border between the Margraviate of Meissen and Upper Lusatia, which is also reminiscent of old field names. Several settlements were located on both sides of the river, with the part on the western bank regularly being referred to as the Meissner side and the part to the east as the Upper Lusatia side or also the Bohemian side.
The upper reaches and almost the entire Saxon valley of the Pulsnitz are under nature and landscape protection. The small river is largely natural there. Due to the partial straightening of the Pulsnitz and its tributary, the Haselbach, the flow velocity and thus the bed load transport was increased in the upper reaches. The rare freshwater pearl mussels that used to live near Königsbrück silted up and died. The heavy pollution of the Pulsnitz by sewage from households and the textile industry decreased after reunification due to the construction of municipal sewage treatment plants and the decline of East German industry.