Around
1165 Margrave Otto the Rich
grants Leipzig its city charter and market rights.
1212 Foundation of Augustinian Canons St Thomas,
also the Boys’ Choir, celebrating its 800th Anniversary this
year.
1409 Foundation of the University of Leipzig.
1481 Marcus Brandis, a wandering printer from
Delitzsch, prints the first book in Leipzig.
1497 Emperor Maximilan I grants the town imperial
trade fair rights. In 1507 he confirms the rights and grants the
''Stapelrecht'', handling rights forcing passing traders to offer their
goods for sale in
the town.
In 1813 a major battle
between Napoleonic forces and combined forces of Russia, Prussia, Austria
and Sweden near Leipzig ended
Napoleon’s presence in Germany and to his eventual demise.
During World War II, Leipzig was repeatedly attacked by
British as well as American air raids. The most severe attack was launched
by the RAF in the early hours of December 4, 1943 and claimed more than
1,800 lives. Large parts of the city centre were destroyed, while factories
experienced temporary shortfalls in production or had to be relocated.
 We left our hotel this morning to walk to the Market
Square beside the old Rathaus and were surprised to find it was serving
that purpose with a farmer’s market in full swing, around the market place
are many old buildings which survived the Allied bombing, there are others
built in the time of the GDR and later which the locals described as S*** Houses,
many of these types of building are being replaced.
From the square we walked through the Madler Passage,
described as among the world’s most beautiful shopping arcades, maybe they
should visit some of Melbourne’s arcades.
In the passage are two statues of characters from Goethe’s “Faust”.
 Around the back of the Old Town Hall is a statue of
Goethe, standing in front of the old Stock Exchange. We retraced our steps to the Market
Square and on to St Thomas’ Church where over 260 years ago J S Bach was
appointed the organist and choir master and the Boys’ Choir was founded in
1212. Bach was reburied in the
Church Chancel when his original burial place was destroyed in WWII.
From the church we walked to the New Rathaus, a building
of over 600 rooms and completed in 1909.
Walking on we passed the Art Centre, Concert Hall and Opera House,
stopping to view the clock on the Kroch-Haus, Leipzig’s first “skyscraper
of 11 stories. On the top of the
building are two bronze figures who strike a bell to announce the time, the
Latin inscription on the building reads “Work Conquers All”.
Around the corner from the Kroch-Haus stands the famous
St Nicholas Church which was founded in about 1165. The church started as a Romanesque style,
then in the 16th C it was extended and formed a Gothic church,
in the 1700s the three spires received Baroque decoration and in 1902
sandstone extensions again altered its appearance. The interior of the church is very
impressive with the tops of the columns decorated to resemble palm trees.
After the war Leipzig was in the
GDR and in 1983 in St Nicholas Church the Pastor commenced Monday Prayers for
Peace. On the 7th October
1989 the police and others battered hundreds of people and took them away in
trucks. On the 9th 1000 SED
party members were ordered to the church and instructed to disrupt the prayers,
600 of them entered the Church and at the conclusion of the prayers the Bishop
and others called for non-violence. 2000
people filed out of the Church, including the 600 “Government plants” who joined
the protestors and were met by 10,000 people waiting with candles in their
hands to support them. (Some reports say 70,000 assembled in the streets)
Troops and the police were called in and engaged in
conversations with the crowd and withdrew. This non-violent movement only
lasted a few weeks and resulted in the Berlin Wall being opened and shortly
afterwards the collapse of the GDR.
At 6:00 we returned to St Thomas Church for Motette in der Thomaskirche,
a service featuring the Boys Choir, 100 boys aged 8 to 18, singing unaccompanied
and several organ pieces and with the 2000+ congregation joining in the
hymns and prayers, a most moving experience.
Motette: a polyphonic piece of music for choir.
Saturday 5th
May
We walked to
the Zoo to see if it was any different to the Berlin Zoo and looking at the map
we couldn’t see that they had any additional exhibits so decided to pass.
Walking on
we arrived at a large fire station and it appeared that they had an open day as
all their appliances were on display, together with rides for children. One of the displays was a demonstration how
to treat different fires and what not to do, i.e. don’t put water on a fat or
oil fire. Rather embarrassing for the
firemen, they couldn’t light the fire to demonstrate the techniques.
From the fire
station we followed the ring road arriving at a large early 1900s building,
originally a fire insurance company office known as Runde Ecke (Round Corner). In July 1945 the American Forces used the
building as their HQ and after the partition of Germany it was used by the
Soviet Secret Service until becoming the Leipzig HQ for the Stasi.
On the 4th
December 1989, the citizens of Leipzig learning that the Stasi were destroying
their records, occupied the building and took control of it, shortly afterwards
a Citizens Committee was formed to maintain control and also take over some of
the powers of the GDR.
Today the committee
still maintains the building and it is open as a museum containing many
displays regarding the Stasi’s methods of surveillance and control of its
citizens, and files were kept on every citizen.
No-one was allowed to openly express their opinion, one woman, who was
investigated, had written on a butcher’s advertisement for steak, in a western
newspaper, “when can we get that?”
Nearly every
phone in Leipzig was tapped, the mail from West Germany and other International
sources was opened and often copied, money was also confiscated, the State stole
an estimated 38 million Marks sent as presents.
The Stasi had hundreds a false franking stamps and postage stamps, so
they could send a letter to a citizen, purporting to have been sent from
overseas.
They ran
classes to teach operatives how to create disguises and supplied them with
wigs, false beards, clothes and other items to allow them to mount surveillance
on the citizens and taught them how to enter apartments and use Polaroid
cameras to photograph the appearance of the rooms. This allowed them to search thoroughly and
photograph items and then restore the room before leaving.
Some people
took advantage of the system, it was reported that a child wrote to their
grandmother in the West thanking her for the pistol and saying he had buried it
in the garden. Weeks later he wrote
again saying, you can now send the tulips, the Stasi have dug up the garden for
me!
In 1986 we
travelled from Denmark through East Germany to West Berlin and at the time
commented how long passport control took, we now know why. Border guards and passport officers were
members of the Stasi and every foreigner had their passport copied and were
photographed secretly, this information allowed the Stasi to produce false
passports. Scary to think some spy could
have been travelling on my copied passport.
Before
visiting the museum we had some idea of how suppressive the GDR were but this
museum showed that we didn’t know how bad it was.
Later in the
afternoon we went back to St Nicholas Church for an organ concert and found
that it was part of Disabled Awareness programme. The
front eight rows were occupied by young people and adults with various problems
and the nave was full of people in wheel chairs.
The concert
started with less abled children assisted by adults using percussion
instruments to accompany three songs followed by two organ numbers. Next a group similar to Bailey House
residents performed three songs and then another piece on the organ. It was interesting to see two rows of deaf
people holding balloons in their hands so they could feel the music and all
announcements and commentary were copied by a person signing.
The
highlight of the evening was a person accompanying the music Gebardenpoesie mit
Orgelimprovisation by miming and signing the preparation and planting seeds and
the resultant growth of trees which were variously destroyed by violent storms
and icy conditions until one finally grew into a mature tree inhabited by birds
and animals, then a forester arrived with a chain saw to cut it down but the
many birds and animals came to its rescue and the forester left it
standing. A most moving and entertaining
performance.
The evening
concluded with J S Bach’s Toccata and Fuge in D Minor, the mighty organ and acoustics
in the Church provided a most stirring performance.
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