Delitzsch

Delitzsch, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Saxony, on the Lober, an affluent of the Mulde, 12 m. north of Leipzig at the junction of the railways, Bitterfeld-Leipzig and Halle-Cottbus. Pop. (1905) 10,479. Its public buildings comprise an old castle of the 14th century now used as a female penitentiary, a Roman Catholic and three Protestant churches, a normal college (Schullehrerseminar) established in 1873 and several other educational institutions. Besides Kuhschwanz, a peculiar kind of beer, it manufactures tobacco, cigars, shoes and hosiery; and coal-mining is carried on in the neighbourhood, It was the birthplace of the naturalist Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (1795-1876), and the political economist Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch (1808-1883), to the latter of whom a statue has been erected. Originally a settlement of the Sorbian Wends, and in the 12th century part of the possessions of the bishops of Merseburg, Delitzsch ultimately passed to the Saxe-Merseburg family, and, on their extinction in 1738, was incorporated with Electoral Saxony.