Pößneck (also spelled Poessneck) is a town in the Saale-Orla-Kreis district, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated 19 km east of Rudolstadt, and 26 km south of Jena.

Its chief industries are the making of flannel, porcelain, furniture, machines, musical instruments and chocolate. The town has also tanneries, breweries, dyeworks and brickworks.

Pößneck, which is of Slavonic origin, passed about 1300 to the Landgrave of Thuringia. Later it belonged to Saxony and later still to the duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, passing to Saxe-Meiningen in 1826.

It has a Gothic Lutheran church built about 1390, and a Gothic town-hall erected during the succeeding century.

Notable residents

Pößneck was the home of the Strelzyk and Wetzel families prior to September 15, 1979, when both families flew out of East Germany in a homemade hot air balloon. Following the end of the Cold War and German reunification, they eventually moved back to Pößneck. Their story was the subject of the 1982 film Night Crossing. Stoessner, Hans Melchior dragoon during the Great Northern War (1678-?)