The scattered settlement with around 1600 inhabitants grew up around several hammer mills, which operated on the course of the Pöhlwasser from the 15th to the 19th century and were supplied with ore from numerous surrounding mines.

The main attractions include the Saxon Narrow Gauge Railway Museum and a well-developed network of hiking trails.

Rittersgrün stretches from northwest to southeast in the Pöhlwasser valley, around seven kilometers south of the large district town of Schwarzenberg, at an altitude of up to 820 meters.

Situated on the Rittersgrüner Pass, which has been actively used since the 16th century, the settlement is flanked to the west by the 792-metre-high Hirtenberg and the Kohlung to the south, and to the east by the 700-metre-high Sonnenberg and the 836-metre-high Ochsenkopf.

[6] Due to the dry air in the area surrounded by dense forest, Rittersgrün was a high-altitude climatic health resort in the first half of the 20th century.

[10] The statement "Undt seint daruber drey wüste Hammerstede und darunter auch eine" suggests that a lively iron processing operation was already underway beforehand.

An earlier settlement in the area is unlikely, as the harsh climate and rocky subsoil hardly allowed for agriculture and therefore offered neither a livelihood nor an attraction.

The first settler to settle on the area to the left of the Pöhlwasser, which is still referred to today as the Amtsseite in allusion to its affiliation to the former Amt Schwarzenberg, was Nisius Lebe from Breitenbrunn, who built his house there in 1534.

The rapid increase in population, which was due not least to exiles from neighboring Bohemia as a result of the Counter-Reformation there, prompted the construction of Rittersgrün's own church towards the end of the 17th century.

The Rittersgrün parish priest Ephraim Gottlieb Löscher noted in the church register: Some of the men "scattered through the village, broke into the houses and took what they found.

The decline in mining, ironworking, forestry and lace-making led to the impoverishment of the population, which reached its peak in 1846 and 1847 with a famine and outbreaks of scarlet fever and smallpox.

A report by the Rittersgrün pastor Moritz Heinrich Rosenhauer, who was elected to the Saxon state parliament shortly afterwards, on the adverse conditions in his parish was published in the Leipziger Illustrirte Zeitung in March 1847.

[18] The hardship was alleviated by state grants and private donations in kind and money and the founding of relief and workers' support associations.

Daniel Simon Junghans, a tanner from Raschau, together with the lace merchant August Wenzel, founded a wood grinding shop on the site of the former Schmertzing'schen Hammer and converted it into a cardboard factory.

Carl Ludwig Flemming, the son of a brush maker from Schönheide, founded a wooden goods factory in Oberglobenstein in 1864, which is still in operation.

The number of overnight stays rose to 16,837 from October 1940 to September 1941 due to vacation trips as part of the National Socialist "Strength through Joy" organization.

[22] After the end of the Second World War, Rittersgrün was initially not occupied by Allied troops for a few weeks (see: Republic of Schwarzenberg) and then belonged to the Soviet occupation zone.

The open-air swimming pool was put back into operation, roads and bridges were renewed, street lighting, drinking water pipes and the telephone network were gradually replaced.

As part of a village renewal program, a total of eight million euros was invested in the infrastructure of Rittersgrün during the term of office of Mayor Frank Siegel from 1994 to 1998.

The Escher Hammer, which had not been rebuilt after the Thirty Years' War and had been donated to the parish by the Elector in 1685, was quickly found to be a suitable location for a place of worship.

A chapel set up in 1966 in the hall of the Arnoldshammer inn was dissolved in 1997 due to the declining number of members and unresolved ownership issues.

Older inhabitants in particular had to work as day laborers, some women earned some extra money by making lace, and at least five people lived as beggars in the village.

Since then, the number of inhabitants has fallen due to the decline in the birth rate and, since the fall of communism and the peaceful revolution in the GDR, the exodus of young people.

It comprises the station building, which houses the tourist office and a small exhibition, an engine shed and an outdoor area with historic carriages and locomotives.

The forest worker Karl August Reißmann came across the 86.5 kg iron meteorite during clearing work and initially stored it in front of his house as it could not be melted in various ironworks.

[32] A partially completed combined cycle and hiking trail between Rittersgrün and Raschau runs along the route of the narrow-gauge railroad, which was discontinued in 1971.

Since 2009, a 30-kilometre cross-border bridle path has led from Rittersgrün via Halbemeile, Pernink and Nejdek to Děpoltovice and the Karlovy Vary district of Stará Role.

Together with the municipality, the sports community completed the construction of an outdoor swimming pool, which was started in 1938 and is fed by the waters of the Cunnersbach, a tributary of the Pöhlwasser.

[34] Today, Rittersgrün is mainly home to the Erzgebirgszweigverein, which was re-established in 1991, the Schützenverein 1883 and the Freie Sportverein 1907 with its handball, skiing, recreational soccer and fistball sections.

Several former production sites, including the large factory complex of the Junghans Söhne company between the church and the railroad station, are now empty.