486 
ZWICKAU. 
Fair samples of the housing conditions of the working classes who 
reside in the inner town, are to be met with in the Endgasse and the 
Magazinstrasse. These two streets had in October, 1906, a total of 468 
inhabitants in 39 two-storeyed houses of the cottage type, dating from more 
than a century ago. On inspection the rooms were found to be dark, the 
ceilings low, and the air very oppressive, though the latter defect was apparently 
due, not so much to the lack of facilities for ventilation, as to the tenant’s 
anxiety to economise fuel by allowing as little as possible of the stove-generated 
heat to escape. Most of the tenements consisted of three rooms, let at rents 
which ranged from 2s. Id. to 3s. per week. One of the three rooms was in each 
case in the attic, and capable of being used as a bedroom. 
In one of these tenements in the Endgasse the living room, which also 
served as kitchen, measured 17 feet by 12 and was badly lighted by two small 
windows looking into the street. The adjoining bedroom measured 17 feet by 
9 and had a single window overlooking a small yard at the back. The height 
from floor to ceiling in these rooms was slightly over 9 feet. A single closet 
(without flushing tank) was provided for the use of the three families residing 
in the house, and was situated in the back yard. Water was drawn from a tap 
fixed in a corner of the passage outside each tenement. The rent was 135 marks 
per annum, which corresponds to a weekly rent of 2s. Id. In the Magazinstrasse, 
an adjoining street, a similar tenement cost 150 marks per annum or 3s. 
per week, though the rooms were in every way smaller ; thus the main living 
room (also serving as kitchen) and the adjoining bedroom were each only 
13 feet by 6 and the ceilings were not more than 7g feet from the floor. A 
two-roomed tenement in either of these streets could be had at as low a figure 
as 96 marks per annum or about Is. 10d. per week, but the nature of the 
accommodation was very inferior and not likely to meet the requirements of any 
but the poorest of the working classes. In one of these tenements in the 
Endgasse, each of the two rooms measured 13J by 6J feet, and a man of 
middle height, standing on the floor, could touch the ceiling with his extended 
hand. With regard to two-roomed tenements generally, it is noticeable 
that they are hardly to be found in any but the oldest houses, either in the 
inner town or in those parts of the suburbs which were formerly separate 
hamlets, and have since been incorporated in the municipal area. In the extreme 
northern suburb of Pölbitz, for instance, there are many old-fashioned cottages 
of rural appearance in the Thurmerstrasse where two good rooms may be had 
for 100 marks per annum or Is. 11 d. per week. 
The dwellings inhabited by colliers in the southern and eastern suburbs, 
however, represent the predominant types of working-class tenements in 
Zwickau at the present time They are to be found in blocks of three or four 
storied houses, built at somewhat wide and irregular intervals along certain of 
the main roads in the south-eastern and south-western suburbs. The windows 
of these houses generally command an extensive view of open country in which 
the winding gear of pit shafts with adjoining mounds of colliery refuse are the 
most prominent landmarks. The absence of forecourts or gardens to separate 
the house-blocks from the road produces a somewhat dreary effect, though 
gardens are cultivated at the back, as a rule by the occupants of the ground- 
floor tenements. The houses in the P< Mauerstrasse, a road leading eastward past 
a number of coal mines, are typical of the conditions in which the less prosperous 
of the working-class population are housed. One of the upper floors of a typical 
house contains six rooms, occupied by three families, each of whom has two of 
these rooms .together with a small room in the attic used for sleeping, and each 
pays a yearly rent of 120 marks or about 2s. 4d. per week. The living room 
of each tenement is entered direct from the stair landing, there being no 
intervening vestibule. This is regarded as a drawback, and in all houses of 
more modern construction each tenement has its own vestibule, however small. 
One of the tenements has two front rooms ; one has two back rooms, while one 
has a front room and a back room. All the rooms are well lighted, there being 
a total of twelve windows for the six rooms. Under ordinary circumstances there 
would be only ten windows, but in this case, the house being at the end of the 
block, two of the rooms have an extra side window each. All the rooms are of fair 
dimensions ; those in front measure approximately 15J by 13 feet while those