May 17, 2025
About 50 miles northwest of the sleepy little town of Torgau and also positioned on the Elbe River is Wittenberg, a somewhat larger city with 45,000 inhabitants. A university was established here in 1502, which attracted two important luminaries to its faculty line-up: Martin Luther and his friend and fellow reformer Philip Melanchthon.
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| Luther's and Melanchthon's portraits were painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder, the most famous German portraitist of his day, who painted at least ELEVEN portraits of Luther and over THIRTY of Melanchthon.. |
Wittenberg is a typical charming German town, maybe even more charming than most because unlike many other German cities of any size, it was spared destruction during World War II. Its religious history protected it from the Allies' bombs. However, it was occupied by the Soviets after the war and became part of East Germany in 1949.
Germany has their own version of "George Washington Slept Here." Two windows in this pretty building are marked with this information: Karl August (1757-1828), who was the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, visited the city in 1820, and Napoleon I, aka Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), King of France, slept here in 1806 and 1813.
