Lutherstadt

Fans snapping pix in Wittenberg

After spending a couple of days in Berlin, our trio hopped a train and headed to Wittenberg.  This town is also known as Lutherstadt Wittenberg.  This is the town where Martin Luther was living, teaching and preaching when he nailed his 95 theses protesting the practices of the Catholics to the door of the All Saints Church.  Scholars and protestants refer to Luther as a leader in the protestant reformation.

In the Catholic educational system Luther is referred to as "the man who vandalized that nice church in Germany," if memory serves.

A matter of perspective, I suppose.

Oh, NOW they put up a fence in front of it.  That might have been helpful 500 years and 95 theses ago.

Anyway, if you want to, you can go see all the sights.  The university, the church where the vandalism nailing of the the theses took place (although the original wooden door has been replaced with a metal one), and Luther's house are all well preserved for visitors.

One might imagine that this place would be turned into something between DisneyWorld and Graceland with a religious bent.  That is not at all the vibe.  It is not heavily commercialized (there are several types of beer bearing Luther's name, but that was about it) and the town maintains a "small town" feel, despite its fame throughout the world.

Small town feel.

Upon arrival, our trio visited the famous landmarks and took in the views that have been basically the same for the past 500 years or so; seeing the town the way Luther may have seen it.  The next morning, the three bought tickets to the Luther House and took the tour.  The Luther House is where Luther and his family lived and entertained visitors.  After his passing, the house was maintained and it still is in remarkably good shape and gives a good flavor of what it was like when he lived there.

 For example, the two photos above, both show representations of Luther's living room.  The top photo is a drawing that is several hundred years old drawn by a contemporary of Luther and the bottom photo was taken last month by a contemporary of KP & JoJo.  The large black stove-type thingy is in both.  According to the locals, this is the original stove used to heat the living room, that Luther and friends would have sat around to talk, sing, or what have you.

KP points out the "tags" left by Peter the Great.

The only degradation of the Luther House that is obvious was some vandalism in the form of graffiti (seems to be a lot of vandalism in this town, just that most of it is 500+ years old).  In the photo above KP points out the graffiti left by Peter the Great of Russia, which is covered by a glass plate.  Apparently, after Peter visited the Luther House (probably in the early 18th century), he autographed the door to the living room on his way out.  Do not strain to read the signature unless you know Cyrillic, however, as it appears that Peter wrote in that script.

Although the living room may have been the best preserved area of the Luther House, the remainder of it was also kept in remarkably good condition and contained a wealth of artifacts.  Behind the house there is an archeological dig that has exposed the oldest part of the Luther House, which probably contained Luther's office.

If these walls could talk....

Below the office was the latrine.

If these walls could talk.... probably not as good.