Notes on the history of Sachsen-Anhalt and Halle
In the 7th and 8th centuries A.D. the present area of Saxony-Anhalt, west of the
Rivers Elbe and Saale, east of the River Leine (in Lower Saxony) and north of
the River Unstruth, was part of the territory of the Saxons and known as
Ostfalia. Conquered by the Frankish King (768) and Emperor (800 in Rome)
Charlemagne (d. 814) in the late 8th century it became an important frontier
region of the Carolingian empire bordering on Slav territories east of the rivers
Elbe and Saale. After this conquest Christian missions could first take place,
before that the Saxons had their Germanic gods, the Slavs their pantheon of Slav
gods. Under Charlemagne a bishopric for the area east of the Harz mountains
was founded in Halberstadt (804) and then another in Hildesheim for the
western part of Ostfalia under his successor, Louis the Pious. Magdeburg and
Halle were already important border settlements in the early 9th century.
Halle, on the eastern bank of the river Saale, known as Hall in Saxony from the
15th until the 17th century (to differentiate it from other salt places with the same
name) was a name common for places connected with the production of salt.
Saltworks existed on the river Saale in the area near the later fortress
Giebechenstein north of Halle already from the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1100 BC)
onwards and were the main basis of Halle's economic and political importance
in the medieval period. Halle is first mentioned when a fortification – its location
up to now not identified - was erected on the eastern side of the river Saale in
806 by Karl, the son of Charlemagne, possibly to protect and administer the
saltworks close to settlements in the area of the later town.
Part of the Duchy of Saxony dominated by the powerful Liudolfing family in
the late 9th and early 10th centuries, the area now Saxony-Anhalt was of great
importance under the German kings and emperors fom this family: German
King Henry I (reigned 918-936), his son German King and Emperor Otto I (936973) and their descendants until 1024. Under King/Emperor Otto I the
Archbishopric of Magdeburg, founded by Otto in 968, the Moorish Roman
legionary Maurice/Moritz being its especial patron saint with the Holy Lance as
the special relic, and also other bishoprics in Merseburg and in Havelberg,
Brandenburg, Zeitz (moved to Naumburg in 1028) and Meißen were founded in
areas east of the Elbe and Saale taken from the Slavs and under German rule
from 929 onwards until recovered by the Slav population in a great revolt in 983.
Magdeburg had not only a cathedral, also important monasteries and a major
imperial residence (Pfalz=palatium). The relatively new (late 10th cent.) royal
residence town of the Ottonian and Salian dynasties, Goslar, in the Harz
mountains, was a major centre in the late 10th and 11th centuries with very
productive silver mines, also a major palace/fortress guarding the mines and
monasteries. Important monasteries and collegiate foundations existed in the
wider area already in the 9th century: Gandersheim (near Göttingen in Lower
Saxony) and Quedlinburg, burial place of the Liudolfing ducal and royal family.
Later Gernrode and many others were founded in the 10th and later centuries. In
the late 11th and 12th centuries came the reformed Orders (Cluniacs,
Augustinians, Premonstratensians – their founder Norbert of Xanten was
Archbishop of Magdeburg 1126-1134, Cistercians etc.) and by 1225 in the
developing towns also the mendicant orders (Dominicans, Franciscans etc.). A
parochial system of village churches gradually developed, particularly in the 11th
and 12th centuries. Many fine and large Romanesque monasteries, for instance in
Petersberg (Augustinian Canons) near Halle or Jerichow (Premonstratensian
Canons), where brick as an innovative material was used, and also many
Romanesque churches in villages, still survive in the area. This has led to the
development of the „Romanesque Route“ and to the establishment of an
international Romanesque Centre in Merseburg, both supported by the Federal
State of Sachsen-Anhalt.
In the late 11th and early 12th centuries as a result of wars with the Saxons the
Salian royal family (1024-1125), with their power centre now in the middle and
upper Rhineland and the (Lower) Palatinate, practically lost control over
Ostfalia to local powers: most important, the counts of Nordheim and their
successors, eventually the Welf family, under Henry the Lion ca. 1150-1180, sonin-law of Henry II, English king and Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, as Duke
of Saxony and Bavaria the most important magnate in Germany besides his
cousin the German King and Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa (reigned 11521190), heir of the Salians. In this area there were also other important though
not yet so powerful families. These became more important particularly after
the downfall of Henry the Lion with the loss of his duchies in 1180, for instance
the Ascanian family from the Aschersleben area, Markgraves in the Nordmark
and from 1157 onwards in Brandenburg. The Archbishops of Magdeburg were
able - particularly after 1180 when they acquired the secular title of Duke of
Saxony - to build up and expand their own territory which included Halle. (The
Archbishops of Cologne acquired Welf lands and the title of Duke of Westphalia
in the west) All these powers were able from 1130/40 onwards to retake and
colonize with German settlers the areas east of the Rivers Elbe and Saale which
had been lost to the Slavs after their great revolt in 983. Particularly strong were
the Markgraves of the Ostmark and Meißen, with bases in Wettin and
Landsberg (with a very fine two-storey Romanesque chapel ca. 1170) near Halle,
ancestors of the later Electors and Kings of Saxony („Upper“ Saxony as opposed
to the present federal state of Lower Saxony in the west) with their capital
eventually in Dresden, in the 17th century with lines of the family in MagdeburgHalle, Merseburg and Weissenfels. In the west (in the present Lower Saxony)
the Welf family were able to save some estates and lands after their downfall in
1180. Otto (d. 1218), a younger son of Henry the Lion, was as Otto IV German
King and Emperor 1198-1214/18. The family was recognized as Dukes of
Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1235, their descendants became Electors in 1692/98 and
in 1815 Kings of Hanover. Duke/ Elector Georg Ludwig/George Lewis became
British King as George I in 1714 through the claim of his mother, the Duchess/
Electress Sophia (1630-1714), Protestant granddaughter of the Stuart King,
James VI and I. In the south of the area the Ludowinger family, counts and then
from 1123 Landgraves of Thüringen, related to the Hohenstaufen royal familythe sister of Frederick Barbarossa married Landgrave Ludwig II -, built up a
major territory. Their last male representative Henry Raspe was briefly 1246/47
anti-king against his cousin twice-removed, the Staufer Frederick II („Stupor
mundi“). In 1247 they were succeeded in Hessen by their heirs, the Landgraves
of Hessen from Brabant, in Thuringia and their Saxon territories by their
relatives, the Wettin Markgraves of Meißen.
After the first mention in 806 nothing is further heard of the Halle area until the
second half of the 10th century. In the 10th and 11th centuries the major centre of
power was now the royal castle Giebichenstein, first mentioned in the 960s,
commanding the Saale valley north of Halle with an urban-like settlement with a
market. On the river near the fortress remnants of the earliest, prehistoric
saltworks and remnants of settlement from the 7th to 10th centuries AD have been
discovered by excavation. In the immediate area of Halle saltworks were being
developed in the 8th and 9th centuries near the later Neuwerk monastery,
somewhat later, in the 9th century, south-east of the later Moritzburg and in the
area of the Dom, then in the late 10th and 11th centuries in the so-called „Tal“,
between the present (new) market-place and river Saale. The eastern and southeast edges of and above the Tal were being settled in the 9th and 10th centuries,
possibly already in the 10th century with the church of St. Gertrude (mentioned
first 1121). The settlement around the so-called Alter Markt (Old Market)
developed in the second half of the 10th century with a church dedicated to St.
Michael, a first wall was built on the east side of this setllement and the Tal in
the late 11th and early 12th century.With the further development of the
settlement in a formerly marshy area east and north-east of the market place
above the Tal a further church St. Mary (mentioned in 1151) was built for
merchants and craftsmen immediately east of the church of St. Getrude, both
surrounded by their graveyards until ca. 1530. Already in the 11th and 12th
centuries substantial residences were being built for noble and patrician families
who had major shares in the saltworks. A settlement for Jewish merchants and
moneyers was founded in the late 11th/early 12th centuries, protected by the
German kings as lords of Halle, close to the early settlement south-east of the
later Moritzburg with a cemetery some 400 m to the north, south of the area
around the New Market (Neumarkt), developed near the Neuwerk monastery in
the 12th century. From the Giebechenstein as fortress the area was administered
by the Burggraf, Salzgraf and Schultheiß as royal officials. Burggraf from 1118
was a remarkable powerful local magnate Wiprecht von Groitzsch with
connections to Bohemia, who built up a considerable territory south of Halle and
Leipzig (founded in the mid 12th century), founded the monastery of Pegau and
was killed when his house in Halle was destroyed by fire in 1124. Presumably
under Wiprecht and the Archbishop of Magdeburg around 1120 a second wall
was erected, now surrounding an already very large area comprising the various
existing settlements, between the Moritzkirche in the south and the site of the
Moritzburg in the north and as far as the ring roads in the east, but without
Kloster Neuwerk and the Neumarkt near it with the present „new“ market at its
centre. After silence since 806 the name Hall now appears for this emerging town
in the late 11th and early 12th centuries.
By 1200 the Archbishops of Magdeburg had now become effective lords of Halle.
The powerful rich patrician families exploiting and controlling the saltworks
however fought for greater independence of the town securing various privileges
granted by the Archbishops. The town became a member of the Hanse around
1280 and was practically independent by 1320 electing its council, first
mentioned in 1258, and with a mayor. Around 1300 the town had some 4000
inhabitants, in 1480 about 8000, despite plague and other epidemics and
economic difficulties in the 14th and 15th centuries. The ambition of the
patricians however met increasing opposition from the Archbishops, particularly
after Archbishop Burchard III was murdered in 1325 in the course of a feud
with the town. In the early 15th century administrative changes by the officials of
the Archbishops began to undermine the town's independence which was further
weakened by internal conflicts and opposition from the guilds and workers
against patrician control. Despite further privileges, some from the German
Kings/Emperors, the conflicts continued and reached a climax in 1475 and the
following years when the salt patricians lost their monopoly of power and were
overthrown by a rising of the guilds and workers in 1478 supported by
Archbishop Ernst from the Wettin family. The city, as it had practically become,
was occupied by troops of the Archbishop who proceeded ruthlessly to suppress
and destroy its independence by further administrative and constitutional
changes. Subjugation and control by Archbishop Ernst was now secured by the
construction (1484 – ca. 1517) of the massive fortress, the Moritzburg, in the
northwest corner of the city, which now became the main residence of the
Archbishops and also the centre of administration of the whole archdiocese.
Economic decline began. Halle's New Year Fair was abolished in 1469. Halle was
now overtaken economically by Leipzig which was granted a further fair by the
Elector of Saxony, confirmed by the German King/Emperor Frederick III. The
university in Leipzig had been founded in 1409 as a result of the flight of
German students from Prague and quickly developed to become the second most
important in Germany after that in Cologne.
From the 11th century onwards many churches and monasteries were founded in
and around Halle. The older churches St. Michael, St. Gertrude (1121) and St.
Mary (1151) have already been mentioned, further parish churches were St.
Moritz (1156?), St. Nikolai (in the area of the Klausstrassen, mentioned 1116, no
longer existing) and St. Ulrich (in the north of the town, mentioned 1210, long
since disappeared, parish transferred to the Servite monastery in 1531) and the
chapels St. Lambert near the new market place and St. Martin on the hill of that
name east of the town. Outside the town there were churches in the nearby
villages: to the south St. George (1121) in Glaucha, to the north St. Laurence
(12th cent.) in the Vorwerk suburb, and in Giebechenstein. In 1114 the
Benedictine monastery called Neuwerk (opus novum) was founded close to the
town on its northwestern side, near the later Moritzburg, its provosts acting also
as archdeacons of Halle in the emerging ecclesiastical administration of the
archdiocese of Magdeburg in the 12th century (existing monasteries and
particularly collegiate foundations often became the seats of archdeacons in
Germany). In 1184 a college of Augustinian Canons was founded next to the
already existing parish church of St. Moritz, in the southwest of the town.The
Teutonic Order received its first German possession with a grant of land in
Halle, in a very marshy area west of the river Saale, from Archbishop Ludolf of
Magdeburg in 1200. The Franciscan friary was founded on the eastern edge of
the town around 1240, used from 1565 as the town grammar school after the
Reformation, demolished in 1828 to make way for the new buildings of the
University, the Dominican friary on the western side of the town ca. 1270, later
also a friary of Augustinian Hermits (founded originally in 1267 in
Giebechenstein). There were also several hospitals, for instance St. Cyriax close
to the Dominican friary and St. John next to the Moritzkirche. In the village of
Glaucha immediately south of Halle, west of the Francke'schen Stifungen, the
parish church St. George already mentioned in 1121 and belonging to Kloster
Neuwerk, was given to the monastery of Cistercian nuns, Marienkammer,
founded near the church in 1231 by the Archbishop Albrecht of Magdeburg,
possibly planned by Archbishop Wichmann some fifty years earlier. Another
Crusading Order, the Templars, had a major centre in nearby Mücheln where
they built a particularly fine Gothic church ca. 1260-80. Gothic architecture
developed at the Cathedral in Magdeburg, rebuilt after a fire in 1209, and
reached an early climax at the Cathedral in Naumburg, rebuilt from about 1240
onwards, and then also in the Cathedral at Meißen in the 1260s.
In the early 16th century Albrecht (1490-1545), son of the Elector of
Brandenburg (now ruled by the Hohenzollern family as successors to the
Ascanian and Luxemburg families), amassed ecclesiastical titles, first as
Archibishop of Magdeburg and Bishop of Halberstadt in 1513. Already in 1514
he also became Archbishop of Mainz, the German primate and (besides the
archbishops of Cologne and Trier) one of the spiritual Electors, and made Halle
his preferred residence, possibly intending it to become the centre for a new
diocese. Much like that other contemporary similar great pluralist Cardinal
Thomas Wolsey in the 1520s in England for his foundation of Wolsey, now
Christ Church, College in Oxford, Albrecht carried out a major reorganization
of churches and monasteries in Halle, closing and moving some. The church of
St. Ulrich was closed and moved to Servite monastery which was dissolved. Also
dissolved were the Neuwerk monastery, the Halle commendatory of the Teutonic
Order and the Dominican friary, which was moved to the also dissolved
Augustian monastery St. Moritz to found Albrecht's new collegiate foundation,
the Domstift, with his famous collection of relics in the former friary church,
which now became the Dom. In 1531 Albrecht received a papal privilege to
found an university based on his new collegiate foundation and proceeded to
build an adjoining fine early Renaissance complex on the site of the former
Cyriax Hospital, which was moved to the now dissolved Hospital of St. John,
next to the Moritzkirche, and develope a university for the old faith in open
competition to the nearby University of Wittenberg, which had been founded in
1502 by the rival Wettin dynasty and after 1517 had become the intellectual
centre for Luther's Reformation. It was Albrecht's need to finance his
acquisition of his ecclesiastical titles by massive payments to the Pope and the
papal administration in Rome by the sale of indulgences, but also the dubious
nature of his collection of relics and his exotic life style, which particularly
provoked the famous 95 theses (1517) of Martin Luther, Augustinian monk and
Professor of Theology at the University in the neighbouring town of Wittenberg,
and the Reformation which began there, the 500th anniversary being celebrated
in 2017, already with many preparatory events. Albrecht's ambition came to an
end when he had to flee from Halle in 1541, when the Reformation in Halle took
place and the city became Protestant, retreating to Mainz and Aschaffenburg in
the west of his territory. The university in Halle was abandoned and after 1541
its buildings became the „New Residence“ for the Administrators of the
Archdiocese of Magdeburg (named in contrast to the less modern „Old
Residence“, the Moritzburg)
In the 15th and early 16th centuries Halle now had many churches and
monasteries, several of them fine late Gothic buildings expressing the wealth
accumulated in Halle: the church of the Dominican friary, begun ca. 1280,
finished ca. 1330 and embellished under Archbishop Albrecht 1520-25 as the
church of his „Neues Stift“ with the earliest Renaissance features in central
Germany; the Moritzkirche begun by the master builder Conrad von Einbeck
and his assistant Peter von Mortal in 1388 , the vaulting of the nave completed
about 1520; the church of the Servite friars, after 1531 parish church of St.
Ulrich, begun in the mid 14th ecntury, most of the nave vaults finished ca. 151020 (late 14th – early 16th centuries) and finally the Market Church of SS Mary
and Peter (1530-1554), envisaged by Archbishop Albrecht as the great central
church of his city, much of it built in the years immediately after the
Reformation in 1541 on the site of the two older churches, St. Mary and St.
Gertrude, which had been demolished in 1529. Albrecht also completed work
which had been going on for centuries gradually draining, raising and levelling
the niveau of the settlement area above the Saale and the Tal, in particular of thr
Market Place, moving the graveyards east outside city. Halle continued to
flourish in the second half of the 16th century, its prosperity reflected in
important buildings and complexes, many built by the leading master builder of
the city, Nickel Hofmann, for instance the completion of the Marktkirche, the
Gottesacker cemetery in the most modern style like an Italian „Campo Santo“,
the New Mill, the alteration and completion of the City Hall, the Weighing
House and Wedding House (these last three unfortunately demolished after
1945).
In the now reformed Lutheran territories (the former bishoprics Magdeburg,
Halberstadt, Merseburg, Brandenburg and Havelberg, the secular terrritories
Saxony and Brandenburg etc.) the rulers now became also head of the church in
their area as „summus episcopus“. The „Reformation“ itself was fairly moderate
as regards the furnishings of churches, many of the medieval objects,
particularly fine altarpieces surviving until today.The Electors of Brandenburg,
Kings in Prussia in 1701, who - as a result of the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) from 1680 onwards controlled Magdeburg and lands of various Wettin lines,
had become personally Calvinist Reformed in 1613 with their court and officials,
their territories however remained Lutheran. The university building as
mentioned became the „New Residence“ of the Archbishops/Administrators of
Magdeburg, Dukes of Saxony, first from the family of the Electors of
Brandenburg, in 1637/44 until 1680 then of Duke August, Admnistrator from
1628/1635, from a junior line of the Lutheran Wettin Electors of Saxony in
Dresden. Halle, which had suffered a decline in the Thirty Years War (16181648), began to recover slowly and was briefly in the second half of the 17th
century a flourishing important cultural centre, in which the father of the
composer George Frederick Handel (born in Halle 1685, died in London 1759)
was the barber surgeon to the Dukes. The Wettin Dukes, from 1680 now residing
in the nearby town of Weissenfels, encouraged Handel's father to recognize the
musical talent of his son, who then received a good musical grounding from
Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow (1663-1712), cantor and organist at the Market
Church and the Dom (the former Dominican church, 1520 church of the
collegiate foundation of Archbishop Albrecht). Handel visited Halle several times
from London to see his widowed mother there, the last time in 1745. SaxonyAnhalt was generally an important cultural, architectural and musical
landscape in the Baroque period in the 17th and 18th centuries with several
princely courts and residences, in which Halle, Weissenfels, Merseburg,
Naumburg-Zeitz, residences of lines of the Wettin family, Zerbst, Köthen and
Dessau of lines of the Ascanian Princes of Anhalt were major centres with the
important city of Leipzig in Saxony on the southeastern edge. After Zachow's
death J.S. Bach applied for and was offered the post of organist at the Market
Church in Halle in 1713 but finally withdrew as he regarded the income as
insufficient. From 1717 Bach was Kapellmeister at the court in Köthen until he
was appointed organist and cantor in Leipzig in 1723. After the death of his first
wife, his cousin Maria Barbara Bach, in 1720, Bach married in 1721 as his
second wife, Anna Magdalena Wilcke, who came from a musical family in
Weissenfels. Bach's eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann Bach was Director of Music
and Organist at the Market Church in Halle from 1746 until 1764. In 1745 Bach
tried to meet Handel, who was then by far the more important composer of the
day and was visiting his mother in Halle for the last time. However Bach missed
the fixed date and Handel had already left. Already an important centre for the
performance of music by G.F. Handel in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Halle
became the venue for a regular Handel Festival in 1922, somewhat later than in
the former Hanoverian university town, founded 1732-37 in Göttingen, with
regular performance of Handel operas.
As a result of provisions in the Treaty of Westfalia 1648 Halle, together with the
territory of the former Archbishops of Magdeburg, fell after the death of the
Lutheran Duke August of Sachsen-Weissenfels in 1680 to the Calvinist
Reformed Hohenzollern Electors of Brandenburg, Kings in Prussia from 1701
onwards and was until 1717 capital of the Duchy of Magdeburg. In 1694 Elector
Frederick III of Brandenburg, first King in Prussia in 1701, partly as a form of
compensation for the loss of Halle's princely residence function, refounded the
University, which Archbishop Albrecht (from his family) had tried to develope
over 150 years earlier, using the papal privilege of 1531 and the building
Albrecht had built 1531-37 for his University, most recently used as „New
Residence“ for the Duke of Sachsen-Weißenfels. Friedrich III/ I of
Brandenburg-Prussia (d. 1713) and particularly his son, Friedrich Wilhelm I
(reigned 1713-1740), encouraged the strict Pietistic movement and compelled the
University to support this movement, so that the liberal philosopher, Professor
Christian Wolff was forced to flee to Marburg in Hessen. In particular Frederick
I and his son Friedrich Wilhelm I supported the foundation (1698) and
development of the „Waisenhaus“ (Orphanage) together with the various
foundations, now known as the Francke'sche Stiftungen, of the pastor,
theologian and missionary, August Hermann Franke, who also received financial
support from the Stuart British Queen Anne. Under the more tolerant Prussian
King Frederick II („the Great“) Wolff was able to return as Professor to Halle in
1740. The University, now a relatively small one in Germany, was closed by the
French dominated administration of the Kingdom of Westfalia, created by
Napoleon for his younger brother Jerome in 1807, which included the western
part of the present Saxony-Anhalt. Also monasteries in the area which had
survived the Reformation were secularized under French and Prussian rule.The
Prussian administration, reinstalled after Napoleon's defeat near Leipzig in
1813, refounded the University of Halle in 1817 and merged with it the
previously Wettin Saxon University of Wittenberg. The Wettin family, created
Kings of Saxony with Napoleon's consent, had supported the French emperor
until the last and the old rivalry of Halle with Wittenberg had not been
forgotten. Halle became an important academic centre of excellence in the
course of the 19th century. New buildings were built for the University 1832-34
on the site of the former Franciscan friary, demolished in 1828, on the eastern
side of the city which developed rapidly with increasing industrialisation
particularly in the second half of the 19th century (1806: 24720, 1900: 156611,
1964: 274402 inhabitants).
Halle was now part of the Prussian province of Saxony, the successor to the old
Duchy of Magdeburg, with the administrative, spiritual and military centre in
Magdeburg. The territory of Anhalt, mainly east of the Elbe, which remained an
independent territory even after 1918, when its Dukes, descended from the old
Ascanian family, abdicated, was finally merged together with the former
Prussian province of Saxony in 1945 to create a State of Sachsen-Anhalt,
abolished in 1952, of which Halle was briefly capital, and replaced by provinces
in the new Communist State, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik in East
Germany, with their capitals in Magdeburg and Halle. Now as a Federal State in
the united Germany Saxony-Anhalt was refounded in 1990 with its capital now
in Magdeburg. The separate existence of the Prussian province of Saxony and
the Free State of Anhalt practically until 1945 explains why they each still have
their own church organizations, Lutheran in the former Prussian province of
Saxony with its seat in the former and present capital town Magdeburg,
Reformed in Anhalt with its seat in Anhalt's formal capital in Dessau. The
Reformed Church in Anhalt is one of the smallest in Germany, a relic of the
former territorial division. The present Catholic diocese of Magdeburg is of
relatively recent date, practically in the diasphora, its territory Protestant since
the 1540s. There were Jewish populations with synagogues in medieval towns, in
Halle already in the late 11th century (see above). With the onset of the Crusades
at the end of the late 11th century Jews were often murdered or expelled in
various pogroms, particularly at the time of the „Black Death“ in 1348/49.
Jewish merchants and financiers were admitted again in the late 17th century,
the Jewish community with a synagogue in Halle in 1692, their communities
emancipated and supported by the French administration 1807-1813, receiving
full rights in the Norddeutscher Bund (North German Union) 1867 and then in
the newly founded German Empire 1870/71. Syagogues of the various Jewish
movements were mostly in towns and cities, but there were also a few in larger
villages where there were Jewish communities. Many synagogues were damaged
and destroyed in the pogrom under the Nazi regime in 1938, also in Halle. After
1933 and particularly after 1938 many Jews left, those remaining mostly
expelled and murdered in concentration camps after 1941 Only a very few
former synagogues now survive, for instance in Gröbzig north of Halle. The
synagogue of the present Jewish community in Halle uses the mortuary building
at the old Jewish cemetery, north-east of the historic city centre, built originally
in 1894.
Parts of Halle, especially in the market place and immediately south of it, were
damaged by bombing at the end of the Second World War in 1945, but
compared with other cities Halle survived relatively well. Major casualties were
the medieval Town Hall and also the Town Weighing House and Wedding House
on the Market Square which were badly damaged by bombing. Despite
considerable opposition by a strong lobby for preservation/conservation the
Communist regime eventually ordered the demolition of the buildings, leaving a
much evident gap. A major new housing area was built southwest of the old city
in Halle/Neustadt, together with industrial development of the city after 1945.
Old houses in the historic centre, particularly in the area developed in the 19th
century on the north side, were left to decay but fortunately not demolished, so
that many could be restored after 1990. Halle is today a major university town in
Germany, the seat not only of regional courts but also of the main central
conservation authority in Sachsen-Anhalt, of the preservation organization, the
Landesheimatbund Sachsen-Anhalt, and of the association for local NGOs for
church building, the Verband der Kirchbauvereine in Sachsen-Anhalt, founded
in 2011. Under the Communist and formally atheistic régime in East Germany
many churches especially in the countryside, which was much neglected by a
régime more interested in industrial and urban development, were not kept in
repair and were allowed to decay, however only rarely demolished. Many have
been restored since 1990 but problems remain especially as the majority of the
population, as a result of Communist propaganda and pressure before 1990, are
not members of the dominant Protestant Church. Roman Catholic communities,
used to a diasphora situation survived better. After Holocaust Jewish
communities - where refounded - were very small but have received since 1990
new members from Central and Eastern Europe, in particular from Russia often
changing the character of communities and creating problems.
Sachsen-Anhalt today is one of the Federal States in Germany with the most
prominent historic buildings in Germany, particularly cathedrals, former
monasteries and churches, but also old towns, palaces and residences. As a result
of decay in the DDR period up to 1990 and lack of sufficient finance in the
present state of Sachsen-Anhalt, it has not been easy to restore and maintain
these buildings. Besides the limited church and state funds, the Deutsche
Stiftung Denkmalschutz (German Foundation for Preservation of Historic
Monuments) (founded in 1985 in West Germany), much voluntary work
particularly of local associations and many private donations have contributed
much to restoration work.
Major literature used:
Handbuch der historischen Stätten Deutschlands, Vol. 11 Provinz SachsenAnhalt, ed. B. Schwineköper (2nd edition, Stuttgart 1987), for Halle pp. 177-192
Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler,founded by Georg Dehio, Der Bezirk
Halle (Münich/Berlin 1976), for Halle pp. 155-171 ,
(1999 appeared Vol. 2 of the new „Dehio“ for Sachsen-Anhalt/Regierungsbezirke
Dessau und Halle, prepared by Ute Bednarz, Folkard Cremer and Hans Krause)
For the results of excavations:
Volker Herrmann and Oliver Specht, Die Stadt Halle – Vom karolingischen
Grenzkastell zur spätmittelalterlichen Bürgerstadt, Kleine Hefte zur
Archäologie in Sachsen-Anhalt, Heft 5 (Halle 2006)
Angus Fowler, Berlin/Marburg/ Newcastle upon Tyne, June/September 2014