Christian Gottlob Wild

Born on December 25, 1785, in Johanngeorgenstadt, Christian Gottlob Wild was a German evangelical-Lutheran pastor, poet, and local writer. He studied in Schneeberg and Wittenberg, and later served as a pastor in Carlsfeld and Breitenbrunn in the Ore Mountains of Saxony.

Wild is best known as a founding figure of Erzgebirgisch dialect poetry. Alongside religious work, he wrote poems, songs, and prose connected to life in the Erzgebirge, helping preserve the region’s language and character in print. His works include Interessante Wanderungen durch das Sächsische Ober-Erzgebirge and a volume of Vermischte Gedichte.

He died on March 24, 1839, in Breitenbrunn. Even today, he is remembered less only as a clergyman than as one of the first writers to turn the spoken voice of the Erzgebirge into literature.