OELSNITZ, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, on the Weisse Elster, 26 m. by rail S.W. of Zwickau. Pop. (1905) 13,966. It has two Evangelical churches, one of them being the old Gothic Jakobskirche, and several schools. There are various manufactories. Oelsnitz belonged in the 14th and 15th centuries to the margraves of Meissen, and later to the electors of Saxony. Near it is the village of Voigtsberg, with the remains of a castle, once a residence of the governor (Vogt) of the Vogtland.

See Jahn, Chronik der Stadt Ölsnitz (1875).