The Free State of Thuringia : Germany

Germany’s center.

Thuringia lies in the geographical center of Germany and encompasses as its heartland the bowl-shaped Thuringian Basin and the Thuringian Forest. It stretches westward to the Werra River and southeastward past the Saale River to the Weisse Elster River. To the southwest lies the Rhon, and in the south the state abuts the Franconian Forest. Thuringia borders on five federal states; further improvement and enlargement of the transportation network is consequently one of the state government’s paramount objectives.

The autobahns A 4 and A 9, which traverse Thuringia in a west-east and north-south direction respectively, are presently being widened to six lanes. With the construction of a new traffic axis through the Thuringian Forest (an autobahn and a stretch of track for high-speed trains), an urgently needed link is being created, one which will do justice to Thuringia’s central location and which would have been completed much earlier had Germany not been divided. Erfurt (211,000 inhabitants), the state capital, is referred to as the “city of flowers”. The old part of the city is graced with an unusually large number of patrician homes, churches and monasteries which virtually make it an architectural open-air museum.

Territorial fragmentation and culture

Thuringia was particularly affected by Germany’s earlier territorial fragmentation. The region’s rulers competed intensely with one another, especially in the cultural sphere, and took great pride in their role as patrons of the fine arts. By far the most prominent among them was Duke Karl August of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach (1757-1828).