Former hard coal shaft site in Hohndorf near Oelsnitz, one of the Ida and Helene Schächte of the Steinkohlen-AG Vereinigtfeld active from the 1870s, closed 1920/31, with the Idaschacht area now a residential neighbourhood retaining its street-name heritag
Schacht Ida (Vereinigtfeld) was one of the hard coal shafts of the Steinkohlen-Aktiengesellschaft Bockwa-Hohndorf-Vereinigtfeld, a Saxon hard coal mining company founded in February 1872 near Lichtenstein. Sinking of the first shaft (Schacht I) of the Vereinigtfeld company began in May 1872. By the turn of the twentieth century, the Vereinigtfeld AG operated multiple shafts at Hohndorf including the Ida- and Helene-Schächte, connected by Zechenbahnen to the Hauptbahnhof Oelsnitz.
Following the economic difficulties of the postwar years, the Steinkohlenbauverein Hohndorf and the associated Vereinigtfeld operations passed in 1920 to the newly constituted Gewerkschaft Gottes Segen. The Gewerkschaft progressively rationalised the Hohndorf Betriebsabteilung and in 1931 the Vereinigtfeld operations at Hohndorf were placed in Stilllegung. The street Hinterm Idaschacht in Hohndorf preserves the name of the former shaft.
The Lugau-Oelsnitzer Steinkohlenrevier, one of the most important hard coal basins in central Germany, saw a wave of company formations and shaft sinkings from around 1870. Among the enterprises formed in this period was the Steinkohlen-Aktiengesellschaft Bockwa-Hohndorf-Vereinigtfeld, constituted in February 1872 near Lichtenstein. The name Vereinigtfeld refers to the combined mining field that the company held in and around Hohndorf. Sinking of the first shaft (Schacht I) began in May 1872; by the Teufendrekord year 1877 this shaft had reached 835 metres depth. A second shaft was sunk in the same period; a third was subsequently added.
By the turn of the twentieth century the Vereinigtfeld company operated several distinct surface installations at Hohndorf. These included the Schächte Vereinigtfeld I, II, and III, and also the separately named Ida- and Helene-Schächte, which served both as Förderschächte and as Wetterschächte for the company's field. Zechenbahnen connected all these shafts to the Hauptbahnhof Oelsnitz, which around 1900 handled the entire coal dispatch of the revier. The Vereinigtfeld AG and neighbouring companies together produced approximately one million tonnes of coal annually by 1900.
The First World War brought major disruption to the revier. The Steinkohlenbauverein Hohndorf and associated Vereinigtfeld operations had difficulty maintaining their financial footing, and in 1920 the state of Saxony consolidated the distressed enterprises into the newly constituted Gewerkschaft Gottes Segen, which grouped the Betriebsabteilungen Lugau, Oelsnitz, Kaisergrube, and Vereinigtfeld into a single state-controlled entity. In the rationalisation that followed, the Gewerkschaft progressively concentrated production at the most efficient sites. The two Vereinigschächte II and III were closed first; by 1931 the remaining Vereinigtfeld Betriebsabteilung at Hohndorf was placed in Stilllegung.
Schacht I of the former Vereinigtfeld company was later reopened as the Rudolf-Breitscheid-Schacht under DDR administration and deepened to 1,200 metres to access deeper seams — a depth that was at the time a European record for coal shafts. Schacht Ida, one of the smaller subsidiary shafts in the Hohndorf field, did not participate in this later reopening. The former Idaschacht area in Hohndorf was subsequently developed as residential and light commercial land. The street name Hinterm Idaschacht in Hohndorf preserves the memory of the former shaft.