“Glück auf!” is a German miner’s greeting, which comes from a sentence wishing miners good luck in finding more lodes of ore (Es mögen sich Erzgänge auftun, or “May lodes [of ore] be opened.”)
This past week, I visited the state of Saxony, which is in the Eastern part of Germany. The region I was in is called Erzgebirge (“Ore Mountains”) and is close to the border with the Czech Republic. It was originally a mining town for silver, but when the silver would run out, the townspeople changed their focus to make a living in other ways. There was a lot more snow on the ground here compared to in Göttingen, and it was beautiful! Because of the cold, Germans living in the area have had to adapt to the weather while continuing to rely on their environment for their livelihoods.
The state of Saxony, which I visited last week, is one of the five German states that was under the Soviet Union’s (Russia’s) control after World War II. Long before this time, however, the area was known for its silver mining. While the Western part of Germany has more coal mines, the Erzgebirge part of Germany historically has had silver and other minerals. As a result, the mining industry was the main economic contributor to that area for hundreds of years.
