The main Imperial army led by Matthias Gallas had returned from Burgundy and repulsed the Swedes back to Pomerania.

After Gallas was pushed back to Mecklenburg by Banér in autumn and was denied winter quarters by the neighbouring Lower Saxon Circle, he retreated with his shrinking army to Bohemia.

To keep his army intact and bring the war into the lands of the Emperor and his allies, Banér traversed the devastated area and attacked Saxony with 18,000 men.

After he destroyed an Imperial detachment under Hans Wolf von Salis at Elsterberg in March, he faced unexpected little resistance, taking Zwickau and Chemnitz in quick succession.

When the Saxon army under Marazzino approached Freiberg with 5,000 men, Banér abandoned the siege and fell back via Chemnitz to join forces with Lennart Torstensson.

He decided to attack the Saxons, now counting 8,000 men, before they could be reinforced by Imperials under Melchior von Hatzfeldt who were approaching from Thuringia.

[7][1] When the Saxon army and its Imperial detachment under Johann Christoph von Puchheim and Raimondo Montecuccoli learned of the Swedish advance on the evening of the 13 April, the broke up their camp at Hohenstein and retreated to Chemnitz.