The concentration of heavy industry, energy production and mining as well as a ruthless disregard for nature during the GDR era caused environmental pollution on a massive scale in the southern part of the state. The “chemical triangle”, a region with a tradition of chemical production dating far back into the 19th century, is now in the midst of a difficult readjustment phase; today extensive public and private investment and cleanup measures are helping to transform this ecologically devastated area into a future-oriented industrial region worth living in. The southern part of Saxony-Anhalt is thus carrying on a long and innovative industrial tradition. Here the Dessau Junkers works wrote industrial history with the manufacture of the first all-metal commercial aircraft and the JU 52, the most frequently built commercial aircraft of the 1930s. In 1936 Agfa Wolfen introduced the world’s first color film.

Music, art and scholarship.

The annual Handel Festival in Halle draws music aficionados from all over the world. One of the most famous of the state’s 140 museums is the Moritzburg State Gallery, which features a large collection of paintings by the German-American painter Lyonel Feininger. The cathedral treasures of the Church of St. Servace in Quedlinburg are among the most valuable in Germany; stolen during World WarII, they were returned to the church after a spectacular odyssey.

Saxony-Anhalt was the heartland of the Reformation; in 1997 - one year after the commemoration of the 450th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther - the 500th birthday of Philipp Melanchthon was celebrated by numerous events in Wittenberg and other towns in the state, ‘he Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg is the newest higher education institution in Germany. It was created in October 1993 by the merger of the Technical University, the College of Education and the Medical Academy. 11,000 students are registered at the over 300-year-old Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg. The College of Art and Design at Giebichenstein Castle in Halle is gaining increasing
recognition.