Obama in Berlin

To be honest, Neil, Berlin is not my favourite city, although I have nothing against Berliners themselves! If forced, I think that I would have to say, "Ich bin kein Berliner; ich bin doch Londoner!"

Although I have lived in several German cities, I have never spent much time in the capital of Germany. For me, it is a place to travel to in order to do business, or politics, rather than to linger. I prefer Leipzig and Dresden, to the south, for example, and the Baltic coastline to the north! I spent some time in Saxony last winter, and was particularly impressed by the Saxon city of Leipzig. Leipzig was first documented at the beginning of the second millennium (AD/CE) in 1015 in the chronicles of Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg and endowed with city and market privileges in 1165 by Otto the Rich. Leipzig has fundamentally shaped the history of Saxony and of Germany and has always been known as a place of commerce. The Leipzig Trade Fair, started in the Middle Ages, became an event of international importance and is the oldest remaining trade fair in the world.

There are records of commercial fishing operations on the river Pleiße in Leipzig dating back to 1305, when the Margrave Dietrich the Younger granted the fishing rights to the church and convent of St Thomas. There were a number of monasteries in and around the town, including a Benedectine monastery after which the Barfussgässchen (Barefoot Alley) is named and a monastery of Irish monks near the present day Ranstädter Steinweg (old Via Regia). The foundation of the University of Leipzig in 1409 initiated the city's development into a centre of German law and the publishing industry, and towards being the location of the Reichsgericht (Imperial Court of Justice), and the German National Library (founded in 1912). The philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig in 1646, and attended the university from 1661 to 1666. On 24 December 1701, an oil-fuelled street lighting system was introduced. The city employed light guards who had to follow a specific schedule to ensure the punctual lighting of the 700 lanterns.

The Leipzig region was the arena of the 1813 Battle of Leipzig between Napoleonic France and an allied coalition of Prussia, Russia, Austria and Sweden. It was the largest battle in Europe prior to World War I and ended Napoleon's presence in Germany and would ultimately lead to his first exile on Elba. In 1913, the Monument to the Battle of the Nations monument celebrating the centenary of this event was completed. A terminus of the first German long distance railway to Dresden (the capital of Saxony) in 1839, Leipzig became a hub of Central European railway traffic, with Leipzig Central Station the largest terminal station by area in Europe. The train station has two grand entrance halls, the eastern one for the Royal Saxon State Railways and the western one for the Prussian state railways. Leipzig became a centre of the German and Saxon liberal movements. The first German labour party, the General German Workers' Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein, ADAV) was founded in Leipzig on 23 May 1863 by Ferdinand Lassalle; about 600 workers from across Germany travelled to the foundation on the new railway line. Leipzig expanded rapidly towards one million inhabitants. Huge Gründerzeit areas were built, which mostly survived both war and post-war demolition.

With the opening of a fifth production hall in 1907, the Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei became the largest cotton mill company on the continent, housing over 240,000 spindles. Daily production surpassed 5 million kilograms of yarn. The city's mayor from 1930 to 1937, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was a noted opponent of the Nazi regime in Germany. He resigned in 1937 when, in his absence, his Nazi deputy ordered the destruction of the city's statue of Felix Mendelssohn. On Kristallnacht in 1938, one of the city's most architecturally significant buildings, the 1855 Moorish Revival Leipzig synagogue was deliberately destroyed. Several thousand forced labourers were stationed in Leipzig during World War II. The city was also heavily damaged by Allied bombing during World War II. Unlike its neighbouring city of Dresden this was largely conventional bombing, with high explosives rather than incendiaries. The resultant pattern of loss was a patchwork, rather than wholesale loss of its centre, but was nevertheless very extensive. The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Leipzig in late April 1945. The US 2nd Infantry Division and US 69th Infantry Division fought into the city on 18 April and completed its capture after fierce urban combat, in which fighting was often house-to-house and block-to-block, on 19 April 1945. The US turned over the city to the Red Army as it pulled back from the line of contact with Soviet forces in July 1945 to the pre-designated occupation zone boundaries. Leipzig became one of the major cities of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

In the mid-20th century, the city's trade fair assumed renewed importance as a point of contact with the Comecon Eastern Europe economic bloc, of which East Germany was a member. At this time, trade fairs were held at a site in the south of the city, near the Monument to the Battle of the Nations. In October 1989, after prayers for peace at St Nicholas Church, established in 1983 as part of the peace movement, the Monday demonstrations started as the most prominent mass protest against the East German regime. In December 2012, kleines c spent some time before Christmas in Leipzig. As for Schloss Wörlitz, what a beautiful place to stay!



Gartenreich - Schloss Wörlitz – England and classical antiquity all under one roof

According to Stephen Hawking, over coming centuries, we shall have to look for a new home beyond our own world, but in the meantime, I commend the World Heritage Site of Schloss Wörlitz to everyone reading 'The Third'.



Unesco - Gartenreich Dessau-Wörlitz

I propose some toast: to Berlin, Leipzig and Wörlitz! Three cheers from kleines c and the gang (lunch)!