Prominent individuals.

Martin Luther (1483-1546) was born in Eisleben and died there as well. He was laid to rest in the castle church in Wittenberg, to the door of which he had nailed his Ninety-five Theses in 1517. Working at Falkenstein Castle in the 13th century, Eike von Repgow wrote the “Sachsenspiegel” (Saxon Mirror), the most important compilation of medieval law. The “Merseburg Charms”, two linguistic monuments written in Old High German, date from the 10th
century.

George Frideric Handel was born in Halle, Georg Philipp Telemann was a native of Magdeburg, and )ohann Sebastian Bach composed his “Brandenburg Concertos” at the royal court in Kothen. Kurt Weill, one of the most expressive composers of our century, came from Dessau.

The scientist Otto von Guericke, who for a time was mayor of Magdeburg, discovered the principle underlying the air pump and demonstrated the effect of a vacuum using his “Magdeburg hemispheres” in 1663. Quedlinburg was the birthplace of the first German woman doctor, Dorothea Christiana Erxleben, who earned her doctorate in 1754 at the university in Halle.