Leipzig was an important trade center in the days of the Holy Roman Empire. It could also have been considered as the center of classical music, and today there is a statue of Johann Sebastian Bach. Noteworthy architecture includes the cylindrical tower of the New City Hall.
In 1813, Leipzig was the site of a great battle, with the forces of Napoleon on one side and the forces of Prussia, Russia, Austria and, Sweden on the opposing side. Napoleon's loss of the battle was a major turning point against his empire, and there is a great stone monument on the site today, called the Monument to the Battle of the Nations.There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >, After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.
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This is Leipzig's Monument to the Battle of the Nations. It was constructed in 1913, for the centennial of the 1813 battle. It is believed to have been an inspiration for the Voortrekker Monument, that we saw in our visit to "Pretoria".
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Potsdam is just to the southwest of Berlin. But Germany is divided into states and Berlin is a state unto itself. Potsdam is the capital city of the surrounding Brandenburg State. In our visit to "Berlin", we have already seen the New Palace in Potsdam where the Kaisers resided. There are several old city gates still standing in Potsdam, the following scenes begin at the Nauen Gate, which was built in 1755.
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There is also a Brandenburg Gate in Potsdam, which has the same name as but is not the same thing as the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. This is Potsdam's Brandenburg Gate, which was built in 1770. Notice how similar this gate is to the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, in Paris, but was built before it. Could Napoleon have used this gate as the inspiration for his arch in Paris?
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Dresden is another city in eastern Germany. Borders have fluctuated over time and the Baroque-style Zwinger Palace, seen in some of the following images, is actually of Polish origin.
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Halle is a city that originated in the early Middle Ages and played a very important role in the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century.
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The city of Magdeburg was founded by Charlemagne himself. It was an important city of the Holy Roman Empire. But Martin Luther attended school there and the city went to the Protestant side in the Reformation. The following scenes begin in Magdeburg Cathedral.
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Eastern Germany is where the Reformation originated and it is a vital part of all that eastern Germany is about. Martin Luther is the name that is most associated with the Reformation, which began in 1517 and changed the world. I once chose Martin Luther as the most important person of the past millennium.
Luther did not suddenly initiate the Reformation. There had been what we could call "Proto-Protestant" reformers and movements for reform in the church for quite some time. There was John Wycliffe, known as "The Morning Star of the Reformation", in England, Jan Hus in Bohemia and the Waldensians in the mountain valleys of northern Italy. But it was the reform began by Luther that spread and grew.
The following four cities on our visit to eastern Germany are not just about religion. All four are well-preserved colorful medieval towns that would be well-worth seeing even if not for their historic involvement in the Reformation.
The following views of Eisleben begin in Martin Luther's birth house, which is now a museum. Luther was born here on November 10, 1483,. Luther also died in Eisleben, although not in the same house as his birth. There is a statue of him in the town square.
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Erfurt is an extremely old city that was important in medieval times as part of the Holy Roman Empire. Martin Luther attended Erfurt University, was ordained in Erfurt Cathedral and entered the Augustinian Monastery as a friar.
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Martin Luther lived in the city of Wittenberg. It was here that he nailed the 95 Theses, demands for reform of the Catholic Church, to the door of the castle church. That day is considered as the beginning of the Reformation. Those who sided with the Reformation are known as Protestants.
It is generally considered that there are four main branches of Protestantism, the Lutherans, the Anglicans, the Baptists and, the Reformed (Calvinists). The Lutheran was the first of the Protestant churches, both Lutherans and Anglicans incorporated some of the rites of the Catholic Church that people were familiar with. But Martin Luther never intended to start a separate church, certainly not one with his name on it. He only wanted to reform the Catholic Church. But he was followed by men who had no intention of reconciling with the Catholics.
The Reformation spread rapidly and the result was war. The Protestants of northern Europe banded together in what was known as the Schmalkaldic League. Finally, the Peace of Augsburg was signed allowing anyone to choose between being Catholic or Lutheran. This only covered the Lutherans, Protestants like the Calvinists were not covered until the Peace of Westphalia, nearly a hundred years later.
Luther actually got the reform of the Catholic Church that he wanted, but only by splitting the church with the two halves in competition, the Eastern Orthodox Church had split away nearly five hundred years before. So much of what the Catholic Church is today is not the original church but the result of the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic response to the Reformation.
One development to emerge from the Catholic Counter-Reformation was the Jesuits, the order to which Pope Francis belongs. But Pope Francis praised Luther and joined in the 500 year anniversary of the Reformation. There have been two major splits in the church, the Great Schism of the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1054 and the Protestant Reformation in 1517. I have always thought that the second great split was not quite as wide as the first.
I myself am a Protestant but see it as we are all in this together. I have been an admirer of the last three popes and if I am in a church it makes no difference to me if it is Protestant or Catholic.
In the U.S., the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was named after Martin Luther because his father had earlier visited Germany.
This new settlement of agreeing to disagree, rather than insisting that everyone had to agree, helped to bring about modern democracy as we know it. Here is Wittenberg.
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Above another medieval city, known as Marburg, is Landgrafen Palace. This is where the meeting was held, in 1529, between the two most prominent leaders of the Reformation. These two leaders were Martin Luther and his Swiss counterpart, Huldreich Zwingli. Anyone hoping for Protestant unity would be disappointed as Luther and Zwingli could not agree on everything. But others had the opinion that being a Protestant was about reading the Word of God for yourself and thinking for yourself, and it should not be necessary for the leadership to agree on everything.
This emphasis on thinking for oneself, as well as settling for agreeing to disagree, brought about modern democracy. But the century of warfare following the Reformation started putting people off to religion and brought about modern secularism.
But people are designed to believe in something and if they don't believe in God then they will just believe in something else. Movements like Nazism and Communism did an excellent job of taking people who, for the most part, no longer believed in God, and giving them something else to believe in.
Anyway, this is Landgrafen Palace in Marburg.
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