UMGEBUNGSENTDECKER
TRAVEL IMPRESSIONS OF AN ART AND HISTORY LOVER
and my experiences as a teacher in China
South Thuringia
Schmalkalden had been of interest to me for a long time and so I headed for southern Thuringia.
Bad Salzungen, Schmalkalden, Meiningen - these are places that some who do not live in the region may have never heard of, let alone that is known where they are. I also had no idea and first had to see where exactly it was going.
The north of Thuringia is much better known. The destinations there, Eisenach, Weimar, Erfurt and Jena, attract more people and there is also the A4 to Dresden in the north - you pass all the better-known cities. You have to make a conscious decision for the south of Thuringia, you don't just drive there. So much the better to discover the unknown.
My guide for the journey became the Werra, which flows between the Thuringian Forest and the Rhön in a north-westerly direction.
All places - with the exception of Schmalkalden - are on this river.
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At Vacha the Werra formed the border between the former GDR and the FRG, and this is where the border between Hesse and Thuringia also runs today.
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Vacha
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In the Thuringian city of Vacha there is a bridge from the 14th century. It is part of the old trade route Via Regia from Frankfurt to Leipzig. In the 20th century it was not passable for 28 years because of the German-German division. Today it is called the "Bridge of Unity".
I took the photo below from the Thuringian side, Hesse is on the opposite bank.
Vacha
It is the oldest city in southern Thuringia and at the same time the "gateway to the Rhön". Due to its location on the Werra and the trade route from Frankfurt to Leipzig, Wendelstein Castle was built, the base and administrative seat of the Imperial Abbey of Fulda. the Castle can be seen in the photo at the bottom right.
"Bridge of Unity" - that's the name of the Werra Bridge near Vacha from the 14th century. It is part of the old trade route Via Regia from Frankfurt to Leipzig. Because of the German-German division, it was impassable for 28 years, now it connects Hesse and Thuringia, which is how it got its current name.
I took the above photo from the Thuringian side.
I made my way to the pretty old town. Vacha has many half-timbered buildings, a beautiful market square, the River, a castle and some outstanding buildings such as the Kemenate (today the city library) and the Widmarckt (today the town hall). The city actually has tourist potential, but there wasn't a single tourist to be seen except me, although Vacha is aimed at guests with extensive signs about its history, but there is not a single café on the market, the surroundings are inviting, but apparently come too few guests over.
The Widmarckt, town hall of Vacha
The Widmarckt is the impressive, proud, multi-storey one
Half-timbered house at the top of the market, which was built in 1613. It can be seen in the photo below.
Die Kemenate (leider ohne Bild) steht am unteren Ende des Marktes am Kirchplatz. Man vermutet, dass es ein Wirtschaftshof war für die Versorgung der Burg, deren Überreste gleich nebenan liegen.
On the right is the tower of Wendelstein Castle in Vacha, next to the round arch there is a plaque commemorating Hans Sippel, one of the leaders of the peasant uprisings.
At the same time the Vitus fountain was built in front of it. The bower stands at the lower end of the market on the church square. It is believed that it was a farm yard to supply the castle.
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Peasant uprising, peasant wars
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Vacha was one of the cities where the Reformation began. In 1525 the peasants rebelled against the authorities there, who refused to introduce an evangelical preacher. This, as well as the poor living conditions of the farmers, led to the uprising. The rebels forced the city representatives to make concessions. Among other things, they were given twenty armed men to stand by. One of them was their leader of the Vachaer Hans Sippel, who can be seen on a relief (see photo below), the one on the Castle Wendelstein was attached. the Troop moved up the Werra to Meiningen and after all the authorities in Salting , Schmalkalden etc. to comply with their demands, namely the "Twelve Articles of Memmingen " to sign, they made their way to Eisenach. There the uprising was put down, the captains captured, tortured and, after a short trial, executed in the market in Eisenach. The whole thing didn't take a month.
Twelve articles from Memmingen
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What sounds more like a mini-revolt here, the farmers were called the so-called "Werrahaufen", was in reality an uprising that was joined by 13,000 farmers. It was the time of the Peasant Wars, which flared up all over the empire. This brought together social and religious demands. The "Twelve Articles of Memmingen" are considered an early formulation of human rights.
These articles should aim above all at the elimination of social injustices, which - so the reason goes - are not god-made but man-made. That was true of the levies, however even for Acquis and privileges for pastures, forests, hunting rights, fishing rights, etc.
It was an uprising against the autocratic enrichment of the authorities, which justified this shedding religiously, but it was precisely these authorities that they no longer wanted to allow their religion to be interpreted, which brought us to the core of the Reformation. The suspicion that the authorities were practicing interpretation for their own benefit was obvious, and one cannot avoid wondering whether the Reformation was not also something of a social revolution. Certainly, with social justice, she would not have had the resounding success that she had.
The interesting question here is why some princes of the Reformation also agree connected, because the nobility probably had little interest about his Privileges to question. At that point, power relations come
relations among the authorities, which were also in competition with each other and used the question of faith for power games.
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In addition, there was a cultural revolution that favored the whole thing or made it possible in the first place - the invention of printing by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz. The "Twelve Articles from Memmingen" were printed in an unbelievable circulation of 25,000 for the time and spread throughout the Holy Roman Empire. They apply after the Magna Carta from 1215 as one of the first written demands for People- and Liberty rights in Europe.
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The twelve articles are kept in the city archive of Memmingen. (Click here to see them digitally.)
bad Salzungen
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From Vacha the journey continued to Bad Salzungen, which is only 20 kilometers away. The main attraction there - the graduation tower - was during my trip (as of summer 2021) unfortunately under renovation, it is currently being completely rebuilt. Graduation towers are the meter-high brushwood walls, over which brine flows incessantly, which is atomized on the branches of the blackthorn and produces air containing aerosol, which one can stroll along to inhale the moist, salty air, which corresponds roughly to the air at the sea and asthmatics and Relief for pollen allergy sufferers - originally they were used to extract salt.
Because these parts are made of wood, they have to be replaced from time to time. I was standing in front of a cordoned-off construction site, hence a photo from the Internet.
By Tilman2007 - Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72532145
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Bad Salzungen is contemplative and calm. There is a small but pretty one Old town very close to the Burgsee, which is surrounded by some spa houses. After a good dinner with regional Rhön beer I a pretty restful night in a hotel located directly on the lakeside promenade, rooms with a view of the lake, cool, fresh Air and the occasional calming sound of water birds. Wonderful!
Schmalkalden
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We continued through the Werra valley towards Schmalkalden. On the way there I drove through an uninhabited area with no industry. To my left was the Thuringian Forest, to my right the Rhön. At some point there is then left and about eight kilometers steadily uphill , since Schmalkalden is not in the valley, but in the Thuringian Forest. In total, it was about 25 kilometers from Bad Salzungen to Schmalkalden.
The Schmalkaldic League
Schmalkalden is a very well-preserved half-timbered town with various squares such as Lutherplatz, the Salt Bridge, the Altmarkt and the Neumarkt. After you have admired the houses around the Altmarkt, you will notice the banners with names and coats of arms that hang on the windowsills on the second floor of the houses. They stand for the members of the Schmalkaldic League.
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Some of these names are known, others are not even known exactly where they are: Landgraviate of Hesse, Principality of Anhalt-Bernburg-Köthen, Principality of Württemberg, Principality of Anhalt-Dessau, County of Nassau-Weilburg, Kingdom of Denmark, but also cities such as Osnabrück, Schwäbisch Hall, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Magdeburg, Lübeck, Riga etc.
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A look at a map of the Holy Roman Empire in the first half of the 16th century shows everyone involved in the covenant.
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Map from the Wilhelmsburg Museum
The members of the Schmalkaldic League - a focus can clearly be seen in the imperial and Hanseatic cities. Here the contrast between the urban bourgeoisie, consisting of merchants and craftsmen, and princes becomes apparent.
The other focus is on the regions of Old Saxony, Anhalt, Saxony and Hesse.
Certificate of the members of the Schmalkaldic League, who extended the defense against all attacks in questions of faith by another ten years with this contract.
After Luther in 1517 (above he can be seen as Relief in the town church of Schmalkalden) Having published his theses, some imperial princes and imperial cities confessed to the newly emerged denomination.
Emperor Charles V would surely have the new one Being able to counter the current trend had it not been for its imperial power to be tied to the Ottoman and Franco-Italian fronts in the 1520s. In 1529 the Turks stood before Vienna, in Italy fought the house Valois against the Habsburgs.
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When the emperor after the fought off danger was able to take care of internal German affairs again due to the Turks in 1530, the Schmalkaldic League was formed in 1531. It initially comprised six principalities and eleven cities - and more and more principalities and cities joined it. By 1546 there were twenty principalities and 31 imperial cities and the federal government stretched from Riga to Strasbourg , from the North Sea to the Alps
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The emperor succeeded in ending the union in the Schmalkaldic War of 1546/47, but at this point in time, Protestantism was so firmly established in Europe that it could no longer be ousted.
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The above map of the Holy Roman Empire shows how heavily the country was criss-crossed with Protestant territories.
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There is a good exhibition about the Schmalkaldische Bund Wilhelmsburg Castle . It shows the entire development and as a visitor you get a pretty clear idea of the time. It will It is clear that the sectarian division of Germany began here and the prerequisites for the Thirty year olds War (Do you want to know more about the Thirty Years War? Click here ). Man should allow about 1.5 hours for the exhibition. I would count the exhibition as one of the most important sights in Schmalkalden, because this one Federation is what defines the city in history. As a visitor one expects a museum that shows the history and this expectation is fully fulfilled.
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The following three photos, which were taken in Wilhelmsburg Castle, show the entrance to the Lock with a view of Schmalkalden.
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Below is Wilhelm IV of Hessen-Kassel as a wall painting over the door.
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The third picture shows the Castle church , a typical Protestant church, which among other things to the galleries recognize is.
Wilhelmsburg Castle, entrance gate of the Castle with a view of Schmalkalden.
Wilhelm IV of Hessen-Kassel as a mural above the door.
Die Schlosskirche , a typical evangelical church, which can be seen from the galleries, among other things . (If you want to learn more about the construction of Protestant churches, click here .)
Meiningen
