FINSTERWALDE, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Brandenburg, on the Schackebach, a tributary of the Little Elster, 28 m. W.S.W. of Cottbus by rail. Pop. The town, which is first mentioned in 1288, came into the possession of electoral Saxony in 1635 and of Prussia in 1815. It has a Gothic church (1581), a château, cloth, rubber and cigar factories, saw mills and factories for machine building.