[1] Raschau is 3.5 kilometres east of the town of Schwarzenberg in the valley of the river Mittweida, which is also known as the Raschauer Grund.

The publisher August Schumann (Vollständiges Staats-, Post- und Zeitungs-Lexikon von Sachsen.

described the community's location in 1822 thus: “It lies, mostly surrounded by the Schwarzenberg Amt area, 2 hours south-southeast of Grünhayn, 3⁄4 to 1+1⁄4 hours east-southeast of Schwarzenberg, 1+1⁄2 to 2 hours west-southwest of Scheibenberg; on the Mittweide, which joins the Pöhl at the community’s lower end; along the new country road from Schwarzenberg to Annaberg; in a pleasant valley bordered on the north by the steep Raschauer Knochen, on the southeast by the gentler Ziegenberg (at which 100 years ago the mine founder Christian was active), to the southwest, however, owing to its meeting the Pöhl Valley, becomes a broad, charming and fruitful floodplain; the community’s elevation runs from 1450 to almost 1550 Parisian feet if one is looking from the lone houses; its length stretches to 5⁄8 of an hour, and its direction goes from west to east.” Early in the 16th century, iron ore was found by the monks from the Grünhain Monastery at the Emmlerfelsen, which triggered the establishment of mining, foundries and ironworks in and around Raschau.

By the end of the 17th century, other stone worthy of mining was found at the Raschauer Knochen (551 m), mainly tin ore, iron ore and gravel, and also small amounts of silver, whereupon new lodes began to be mined, although their yields were mostly only small.

The Allerheiligen-Fundgrube (“All Hallows Lode”) worked, besides silver, bismuth and cobalt ores, also gravel, which served as the basis for sulphur and vitriolic acid making.

The 17th century in Raschau was shaped by two catastrophes, the Thirty Years' War and the plague, which last beset the village in 1680.

In the time following this, Raschau developed itself quite well; besides the flourishing mining industry at the lodes around the community, there was also lace tatting and the population swelled considerably.

The Schwarzenberg-to-Annaberg railway line, dedicated in 1889, stopped at the community, and ever more, Raschauers earned their living working in the factories.

The village was especially badly stricken in the summer of 1632 when the later field marshal Heinrich von Holk invaded Saxony.

Ore Mountain chronicler Christian Lehmann (de) reports fights between Holk's troops and Raschau and Markersbach inhabitants stretching from the ironworks to Unterscheibe over a “small mile”.

In Raschau it was the carpenter Heinrich Bach, Martin Ruder and Paul Weichel as well as Thomas Ficker’s farmhand “all of whom one day, by the emperor’s rapacious warriors who invaded on 20 August, were mown down”.

In 1640, Peter Weigel's wife Barbara and their daughter Margaretha died while fleeing into the woods from the invading Swedes as most of the villagers did.

One froze on her flight, and the other was lost and her remains – “a few bones and clothing remnants” – were found only months later and buried.

Only in the late 17th century did Raschauers get back on their feet economically, recovering slowly from the war's aftermath.

It was not, as commonly claimed, the retreating troops’ doing, but rather Jacob Junghans himself had brought the Black Death to town.

To avoid being infected, neither the minister nor the gravedigger was willing to take on the job of burying the dead, often leaving the victims’ families to deal with the arrangements themselves.

In the worst case, nobody was willing to bury the dead, and thus Euphrosina Neubert, who “died in the parish wood” on 23 September of that year, was “eaten by foxes and dogs”.

As late as the early 16th century, the monks from the Grünhain Monastery were supplying church services before Raschau, in the course of the Reformation, acquired its own minister.

Merkel began with only five workers, but the cork factory developed quickly under his successor, becoming the community's main employer.

The town hall, which is today also the seat of the Raschau-Markersbach-Pöhla administrative community, was dedicated on 11 November 1907 under then mayor Max Jäger.

However, the arms might be heraldically described thus: In gules a horse springing argent upon a three-knolled hill (Dreiberg in German heraldry) vert.

Closely bound with Raschau's history is the village's oldest mill, which had a documentary mention as early as 1240.

This was first housed in a building whose use had until then been foreseen for Soviet military personnel and in the 1960s, owing to the ever-growing numbers of pupils, it was expanded.

Finally, in the 1970s, a completely new school building was built, taking on its function in October 1973, and two years later being dubbed the Paul-Blechschmidt-Oberschule.