HOHENSTEIN (Hohenstein-Ernstthal), a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, on the slopes of the Erzgebirge, and on the railway Reichenbach-Chemnitz, 12 m. N.E. of Zwickau. Pop. (1905) 13,903. Hohenstein possesses two fine Evangelical churches, a town hall, restored in 1876, and several monuments to famous men. The principal industries are the spinning and weaving of cotton, the manufacture of machines, stockings, gloves and woollen and silk fabrics, cotton printing and dyeing. Many of the inhabitants are also employed in the neighbouring copper and arsenic mines. Not far from Hohenstein there is a mineral spring, connected with which there are various kinds of baths. Hohenstein is the birthplace of the physicist G. H. von Schubert and of C. G. Schroter (1699-1782), one of the inventors of the pianoforte. Hohenstein consists of two towns, Hohenstein and Ernstthal, which were united in 1898. Another place of the same name is a town in East Prussia. Pop. (1900) 2467. This Hohenstein, which was founded by the Teutonic Order in 1359, has a Roman Catholic and an Evangelical church, a synagogue and several educational establishments. HOHENZOLLERN, the name of a castle which stood on the hill of Zollern about 1(1/2) m. south of Hechingen, and gave its name to the family to which the present German emperor belongs. A vague tradition connects the house with the Colonna family of Rome, or the Colalto family of Lombardy; but one more definite unites the Hohenzollerns with the Burkhardingers, who were counts in Raetia during the early part of the 10th century, and two of whom became dukes of Swabia. Tassilo, a member of this family, is said to have built a castle at Zollern early in the 9th century; but the first historical mention of the name is in the _Chronicon_ of a certain Berthold (d. 1088), who refers to Burkhard and Wezil, or Werner, of Zollern, or Zolorin. These men appear to have been counts of Zollern, and to have met their death in 1061. The family of Wezil died out in 1194, and the existing branches of the Hohenzollerns are descended from Burkhard and his son Frederick, whose eldest son, Frederick II., was in great favour with the German kings, Lothair the Saxon and Conrad III. Frederick II. died about 1145, and his son and successor, Frederick III., was a constant supporter of the Hohenstaufen. This count married Sophia, daughter and heiress of Conrad, burgrave of Nuremberg, and about 1192 he succeeded his father-in-law as burgrave, obtaining also some lands in Austria and Franconia. He died about 1200, and his sons, Conrad and Frederick, ruled their lands in common until 1227, when an important division took place. Conrad became burgrave of Nuremberg, and, receiving the lands which had come into the family through his mother, founded the Franconian branch of the family, which became the more important of the two; while Frederick, receiving the county of Zollern and the older possessions of the family, was the