Erfurt () is the capital and largest city of the Central German state of Thuringia, with a population of around 216,000. It lies in the wide valley of the River Gera, in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest, and in the middle of a line of the six largest Thuringian cities (Thüringer Städtekette), stretching from Eisenach in the west, via Gotha, Erfurt, Weimar and Jena, to Gera in the east. Together with Kassel and Göttingen, it is one of the cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants lying closest to the geographic centre of Germany. Erfurt is south-west of Leipzig, north-east of Frankfurt, south-west of Berlin and north of Munich.
Erfurt's old town is one of the best preserved medieval city centres in Germany.Erfurt Tourismus (2003) Erfurt: Erlebnis Krämerbrücke [parallel title: Merchants' Bridge]. Erfurt: Erfurt Stadtverwaltung The Gera is spanned by the Merchants' Bridge (Krämerbrücke), one of the rare bridges with houses built on it. On the Erfurt Cathedral Hill is the ensemble of Erfurt Cathedral—which houses the world's largest free-swinging medieval bell"Erfurt Cathedral ", Sacred-Destinations.com.—and St Severus' Church. Petersberg Citadel is one of the largest and best preserved town fortresses in Central Europe.Zitadelle Petersberg - Im neuen Glanz erleben , Erfurt Tourismus & Marketing GmbH (in German). Retrieved 31 October 2016 Erfurt's Old Synagogue is the oldest intact synagogue in Europe, and together with the , which was only rediscovered in 2007, and the , forms the UNESCO World Heritage Site Jewish-Medieval Heritage of Erfurt.Jewish-Medieval Heritage of Erfurt
The city's economy is based on agriculture, horticulture and microelectronics. Its central location has made it a logistics hub for Germany and central Europe. Erfurt hosts the second-largest trade fair in eastern Germany (after Leipzig), as well as the public television children's channel KiKa. The city is on the Via Regia, a medieval trade and pilgrims' road network. Erfurt Main Station is the junction of the Nuremberg–Erfurt and the Erfurt–Leipzig/Halle high-speed lines with the Halle–Bebra railway.
Erfurt was first mentioned in 742, as Saint Boniface founded the diocese. Although the town did not belong to any of the Thuringian states politically, it quickly became the economic centre of the region and was a member of the Hanseatic League.Westholm, Gun (1994) Hanseatic Sites, Routes and Monuments: A Traveler's Guide to the Past and Present, Uppsala: Gotland Centre for Baltic Studies It was part of the Electorate of Mainz during the Holy Roman Empire, and became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1802. From 1949 until 1990 Erfurt was part of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).
The University of Erfurt was founded in 1379, making it the first university to be established within the geographic area which constitutes modern Germany. It closed in 1816 and was re-established in 1994. Martin Luther (1483–1546) was its most famous student, studying there from 1501 before entering St Augustine's Monastery in 1505.Metaxas, Eric (2017) Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World, New York: Viking Press Other noted Erfurters include the medieval philosopher and mystic Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1328), the Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706) and the sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920).
History
Prehistory and antiquity To the west of Erfurt in Frienstedt, a large Germanic village, which was found during the construction of a highway, where the oldest Germanic word ever discovered in Central Germany was found written in runic script on a comb from a sacrificial shaft. From the Roman era, 200 coins dating back to the third century were found, plus 150 Roman ceramic fragments and more than 200 fibulae. 11 inhumation graves of the Haßleben-Leuna group were also discovered.
The Melchendorf dig in the southern city part showed a settlement from the Neolithic period. The Thuringi inhabited the Erfurt area in c. 480 and gave their name to Thuringia in c. 500.
Middle Ages
The town is first mentioned in 742 under the name of "Erphesfurt": in that year, Saint Boniface wrote to Pope Zachary to inform him that he had established three dioceses in central Germany, one of them "in a place called Erphesfurt, which for a long time has been inhabited by pagan natives." All three dioceses (the other two were Würzburg and Büraburg) were confirmed by Zachary the next year, though in 755 Erfurt was brought into the diocese of Mainz. That the place was populous already is borne out by archeological evidence, which includes 23 graves and six horse burials from the sixth and seventh centuries.
Throughout the Middle Ages, Erfurt was an important trading town because of its location, near a ford across the Gera river. Together with the other five Thuringian woad towns of Gotha, Tennstedt, Arnstadt and Langensalza it was the centre of the German woad trade, which made those cities very wealthy. Erfurt was the junction of important trade routes: the Via Regia was one of the most used east–west roads between France and Russia (via Frankfurt, Erfurt, Leipzig and Wrocław) and another route in the north–south direction was the connection between the Baltic Sea ports (e. g. Lübeck) and the potent upper Italian city-states like Venice and Milan.
During the tenth and eleventh centuries both the Emperor and the Electorate of Mainz held some privileges in Erfurt. The German kings had an important monastery on Petersberg hill and the Archbishops of Mainz collected taxes from the people. Around 1100, some people became free citizens by paying the annual "" (liberation tax), which marks a first step in becoming an independent city. During the 12th century, as a sign of more and more independence, the citizens built a city wall around Erfurt (in the area of today's ). After 1200, independence was fulfilled and a city council was founded in 1217; the town hall was built in 1275. In the following decades, the council bought a city-owned territory around Erfurt which consisted at its height of nearly 100 villages and castles and even another small town (Sömmerda). Erfurt became an important regional power between the Landgraviate of Thuringia around, the Electorate of Mainz to the west and the Electorate of Saxony to the east. Between 1306 and 1481, Erfurt was allied with the two other major Thuringian cities (Mühlhausen and Nordhausen) in the Thuringian City Alliance and the three cities joined the Hanseatic League together in 1430. A peak in economic development was reached in the 15th century, when the city had a population of 20,000 making it one of the largest in Germany. Between 1432 and 1446, a second and higher city wall was established. In 1483, a first city fortress was built on Cyriaksburg hill in the southwestern part of the town.
In the year 1184, Erfurt was the location of a notable accident called the Erfurter Latrinensturz ('Erfurt latrine fall'). King Henry VI held council in a building of the Erfurt Cathedral to negotiate peace between two of his vassals, Archbishop Konrad I of Mainz and Landgrave Ludwig III of Thuringia. The amassed weight of all the gathered men proved too heavy for the floor to bear, which collapsed. According to contemporary accounts, dozens of people fell to their death into the latrine pit below. Ludwig III, Konrad I and Henry VI survived the affair.
The Jewish community of Erfurt was founded in the 11th century. Together with the Jewish communities in Mainz, Worms and Speyer, it became one of the most influential in Germany. The Old Synagogue is still extant and is a museum today, as is the mikveh at Gera river near .Archeologists Discover Medieval Jewish Bath in Erfurt, 12.04.2007, Deutsche Welle, In 1349, during the wave of Black Death Jewish persecutions across Europe, the Jews of Erfurt were rounded up, with more than 100 killed and the rest driven from the city. Before the persecution, a wealthy Jewish merchant buried his property in the basement of his house. In 1998, this treasure was found during construction works. The Erfurt Treasure with various gold and silver objects is shown in the exhibition in the synagogue today. Only a few years after 1349, the Jews moved back to Erfurt and founded a second community, which was disbanded by the city council in 1454. Because of their exceptional testimony to the life of a medieval Jewish community, the Jewish sites in Erfurt were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023.In 1379, the University of Erfurt was founded. Together with the University of Cologne it was one of the first city-owned universities in Germany, while they were usually owned by the . Some buildings of this old university are extant or restored in the "Latin Quarter" in the northern city centre (like , student dorms "" and others, the hospital and the church of the university). The university quickly became a hotspot of German cultural life in Renaissance humanism with scholars like Ulrich von Hutten, Helius Eobanus Hessus and Justus Jonas.
Early modern period
In 1501 Martin Luther (1483–1546) moved to Erfurt and began his studies at the university. After 1505, he lived at St. Augustine's Monastery as a friar. In 1507 he was ordained as a priest in Erfurt Cathedral. He moved permanently to Wittenberg in 1511. Erfurt was an early adopter of the Protestant Reformation, in 1521.Metaxas, Eric (2017) Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World, New York: Viking Press.
In 1530, the city became one of the first in Europe to be officially bi-confessional with the Hammelburg Treaty. It kept that status through all the following centuries. The later 16th and the 17th century brought a slow economic decline of Erfurt. Trade shrank, the population was falling and the university lost its influence. The city's independence was endangered. In 1664, the city and surrounding area were brought under the dominion of the Electorate of Mainz and the city lost its independence. The Electorate built a huge fortress on Petersberg hill between 1665 and 1726 to control the city and instituted a governor to rule Erfurt.
In 1682 and 1683 Erfurt experienced the worst plague years in its history. In 1683 more than half of the population died because of the deadly disease.
In Erfurt, witch-hunts are known to have taken place from 1526 to 1700. There are 18 records of trials for witchcraft in this period.
During the late 18th century, Erfurt saw another cultural peak. Governor Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg had close relations with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Johann Gottfried Herder, Christoph Martin Wieland and Wilhelm von Humboldt, who often visited him at his court in Erfurt.
Erfurt during the Napoleonic Wars