Before the mining industry came.

Hotel: “Zur Deutsche Flotte” (The German Fleet)

Die Deutsche Flotte

The hotel “Zur Deutsche Flotte” opened in 1906-06, and was originally called “Zur Glocke” (The Bell). However, the expansion of the German naval fleet before WW1 appealed to local sentiment, and the owner, Julius Lott, rechristened his hotel.

Gaststätte-Sprecher

The hotel became an central part of village social life. Young people from a wide surrounding area came to the dances. Large parties and occasions were celebrated in the ballroom, and several generations of villagers met their future partners on the dance floor. The mining company took over the building at the beginning of the 1990s and the dancing stopped. Since then, the hotel has stood empty, and silent.

Barn

Scheune

The road from Calau to Luckau runs through the centre of Schlabendorf. Over and over, soldiers and refugees passed through the village: german troops from west to east, refugees from east to west, closely followed by the Russian military. After WW2 the region east of the Oder-Neisse line (part of Silesia) came under Polish administration. The German-Polish border moved west and in 1945 German citizens were driven out of the area east of the river Neisse. Many of these Silesian refugees settled in Schlabendorf. For these people, enforced relocation (again) because of the mining industry was particularly tragic.