Weißenfels, Germany

Augustus therefore from 1660 onward erected the Baroque Neu-Augustusburg Castle on a hill in Weißenfels as the seat of his ducal successors. Completed in 1680 it became the duchy's administrative as well as cultural centre until its dissolution in 1746. Composers like Johann Philipp Krieger and Georg Philipp Telemann worked here, the actress Friederike Caroline Neuber made her first appearances at Weißenfels. In 1702 Johann Sebastian Bach's application for the position of the organist in Sangerhausen (belonging to Weißenfels) failed, because the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels preferred the—rediscovered in 2010—composer Johann Augustin Kobelius. In 1713 Johann Sebastian Bach dedicated his cantata Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd, BWV 208 to Duke Christian of Saxe-Weissenfels.

The Lutheran theologian Erdmann Neumeister from 1704 on served as a deacon at the ducal palace's Trinity Chapel. Its pipe organ completed in 1673 has 22 stops. According to John Mainwaring, Duke Johann Adolf I of Saxe-Weissenfels himself discovered the musical talent of George Frideric Handel, when he heard the son of his physician Georg Händel playing on the organ. Bach wrote the Toccata and Fugue in F major (BWV 540) for it.

With the extinction of the Wettin Saxe-Weissenfels line in 1746, the town fell back to the Saxon Electorate and after the 1815 Congress of Vienna to the Prussian Province of Saxony. From 1816 on it was the capital of the Weißenfels district until its dissolution in 2007.

By 1900 Weissenfels was one of the largest shoe manufacturing centres in Germany with 64 factories employing some 3,200 people.

In the First World War, Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 66, which was stationed in Weißenfels, Naumburg and Altenburg, served on the Western Front, with casualties of 134 officers and 2472 other ranks killed. A war memorial featuring a huddled man was unveiled in Weissenfels in 1925, it has since been extensively damaged.

During the Weimar Republic period, city elections heavily favoured the Communist Party (KPD) and the Social Democrats (SPD). In September 1932 Weissenfels’ shoe workers went on strike for 10 days, later joined by construction workers, against wage cuts and the emergency decrees of the Papen Government. In January 1933 an “Anti-Fascist Action” rally was held in the Volkshaus, supported by the KPD, SPD and the Reichbanner (an SPD self protection group against the Nazi brownshirts), and a KPD led “united front” demonstration against the Nazis was held in the market square – the last public rally before opposition to the Nazi regime was suppressed in March.

In city council elections of March 1933 the votes cast for both the KPD and SPD were little changed from previously, but the Nazi vote increased hugely. With the four elected Communist Deputies being interned and not able to take their seats, the Nazis took control of the council. At the same time the first Nazi rallies were held in the town: a police, SA and SS parade in the castle in early March 1933 and an SA rally in the Market Square later in the month.

Under the Nazis, while the Gestapo were headquartered in the city in a house appropriated from a Jewish cattle dealer, the main police station remained in Neu-Augustusburg Castle, which also became the local Gestapo internment facility. The internment camp population grew to around 180 prisoners, primarily communists and SPD members. At this time the Nazis were keen to emphasise the ‘protective custody’ and political reeducation nature of the camp and local newspapers reported on the Weissenfels camp regularly. Between June and August 1933 the majority of detainees were transferred to the Lichtenburg concentration camp, although the castle continued to be used as a protective custody facility, including later for members of the Jewish community. Reinhard Schramm, Ich will lieben: die Juden in Weissenfels, Bohlau 2001.

In 1933 there were 165 Jews living in the city but picketing of Jewish owned shops and the forced ‘aryanisation’ of Jewish businesses, and the events of Kristallnacht led to many emigrating. Deportations began in 1940 and 38 Jewish residents of Weissenfels were murdered in the Holocaust [Amtsblatt_2019_Nummer_13]. 34 Stolperstein have been laid in the town to commemorate local Jewish victims of the Nazi regime.