Weißenfels

Geschichte

Weißenfels is the largest town of the Burgenlandkreis district, in southern Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the river Saale, approximately 30km south of Halle.HistoryPerhaps the first mention of the area, before the town itself was founded occurred in 806 CE, when Charles the Younger (Karl der Jüngere), King of the Franks, fought and killed two West Slavic Knezy (princes) nearby: duke Miliduch of the Sorbs and Nessyta (possibly also a Sorbian leader). Miliduch had led a Sorbian invasion of Austrasia.The settlement arose around a castle on a ford crossing the Saale and received municipal rights in 1185. During the Thirty Years' War, the town was badly damaged and the population fell from 2200 to 960. On 7 November 1632 the body of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden was first laid out at Weißenfels after he had been killed the day before at the Battle of Lützen.Shortly afterwards however, the town took a steep rise, when Duke Augustus, a scion of the Saxon House of Wettin, established the Duchy of Saxe-Weissenfels in 1656 and chose Weißenfels as his residence. Since 1638 Augustus had served as the Protestant administrator of the Magdeburg archbishopric, which, according to the 1648 Peace of Westphalia would be finally secularised to Brandenburg-Prussia upon his death.