GROSSENHAIN  , a

town in the kingdom of Saxony, 20 M . N. from Dresden, on the main line of railway (via Elsterwerda) to Berlin and at the junction of lines to Priestewitz and Frankforton-Oder . Pop . (1905) 12,015 . It has an Evangelical church, a modern and a commercial school, a library and an extensive public park . The industries are very important, and embrace manufactures of woollen and cotton stuffs, buckskin, leather, glass and machinery . Grossenhain was originally a Sorb settlement . It was for a time occupied by the Bohemians, by whom it was strongly fortified . It afterwards came into the possession of the margraves of Meissen, from whom it was taken in 1312 by the margraves of Brandenburg . It suffered considerably in all the great German wars, and in 1744 was nearly destroyed by fire . On the 16th of May 1813, a battle took place here between the French and the Russians . See G .

W . Schuberth, Chronik der Stadi Grossenhain (Grossenhain, 1887—1892) .