The Research Library for Reformation Studies is located in Wittenberg Castle, on around 1,800 m² over two floors. The castle was completely renovated between 2013 and 2017 and set up for new uses. The state of Saxony-Anhalt, the Evangelical Church in Germany and Lutherstadt Wittenberg worked together to this end.
With the renovation and conversion of the Castle Church and the castle, a new centre for science, culture, education and church life has been created at the western entrance to Wittenberg’s old town. The Research Library for Reformation Studies, the Protestant Seminary for Preachers, the Christian Art Foundation and the Visitor Centre of the Castle Church work in close proximity. As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the castle church is a tourist attraction, with the burial sites of Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon as well as the door on which Luther posted his theses in 1517. The church serves as a training church for the Protestant Seminary for Preachers, and, together with the Castle Church congregation and supported by the Evangelical Wittenberg Foundation, a multifaceted parish and cultural life unfolds here.
From medieval castle to Renaissance palace
The ensemble of buildings consisting of the castle and the Castle Church is closely linked to the history of the princes of central Germany, of the university, of the city of Wittenberg and of the Lutheran Reformation. The castle was built on the grounds of a castle complex of the Ascanians, whose Saxe-Wittenberg line had used the place as a centre of power since the 13th century. After the male line of the dynasty died out in 1422, Wittenberg Castle and the Saxon Electoral District, with which the Electorate was connected, passed to the Wettins in 1423.
When this noble family split into the main lines of the Ernestines and the Albertines with the division of Leipzig in 1485, Wittenberg increasingly became the centre of princely interest. Frederick III, known as Frederick the Wise (1463-1525) and heir to the Ernestine dominions since 1486, had Wittenberg expanded in the years around 1500. The Ascanian castle was largely demolished for this purpose and replaced from 1489 to 1508 by a new, three-storey main castle with two towers. A magnificent Castle Church was constructed between 1496 and 1509, where the All Saints’ church and a large collection of relics were incorporated. From 1515 to 1525, an outer castle was built on the east side of the castle grounds. As well as living quarters and working rooms for the princes and the farm buildings required for the court, the complex also housed the electoral court library.
University and Reformation
In 1502, the Ernestines founded the Leucorea, a university in which young people were to be trained for the state administration, schools and churches of the Ernestine dominions in particular. The Castle Church became a university church. Georg Spalatin (1484-1545), court chaplain and close confidant of Frederick the Wise, expanded the castle library, which was initially quite modest, into the first Wittenberg court and university library. The castle became more and more a prince’s court and an academic training centre for young nobles. Through the interplay of the establishment of the electoral residence and the unfolding of academic life, the social milieu, the cultural prerequisites, and the political constellations emerged in which the reformational ideas of Martin Luther and his fellow campaigners could develop into a supra-regional and long-term effective reformatory movement. Wittenberg became an intellectual and political centre that attracted students from all over Europe.
Takeover by the Albertines
After the victory of the imperial army over the troops of the Schmalkaldic League in the Battle of Mühlberg, the Ernestines lost the Saxon electoral dignity and the Electoral Circle with Wittenberg in 1547 to the enemy cousins of the Albertine line of the Wettins. The Ernestine court and university library was first relocated to Weimar and later to Jena. A new university library was built in the castle for academic teaching, which moved to the eastern end of the old town after the completion of the Augusteum in 1598. Wittenberg lost considerable importance under the Albertines in the assemblage of the Albertine dominions and residences, and court was held less and less frequently in Wittenberg. After the Thirty Years’ War, the castle primarily served merely as an administrative seat. However, Wittenberg maintained its cultural significance – politically and as a university location – as a place associated with the electoral dignity.
War destruction and military purposes
In the Seven Years’ War, Wittenberg in the Electorate of Saxony was occupied by the Prussians and bombarded by the Imperial Army in 1760. The castle and Castle Church were badly damaged, with only parts of the buildings patched up in the interim for administrative purposes and as granaries. During the Wars of Liberation, French troops retreated to Wittenberg and were bombarded there in 1814 by troops of the anti-Napoleonic military alliance. Wittenberg Castle burned down again. At the Congress of Vienna, the Saxon Electoral Circle with Wittenberg was awarded to Prussia. The Leucorea was merged with the University of Halle, and the Wittenberg site was abandoned. The destroyed castle was taken over by the Prussian military fiscal authority and rebuilt as a citadel. Some parts of the historic building structures were removed, others drastically changed.
Civilian uses
After the First World War, new, now civilian uses were found for the castle: the city archive was relocated to it, and apartments and a youth hostel were also set up. From 1949 to 2011, the castle was also home to the “Julius Riemer Museum of Natural History and Ethnology”. When it was decided, in the course of preparations for the Reformation anniversary in 2017, to comprehensively renovate the area around the Castle Church and the castle, a new usage concept was also drawn up, aiming to broaden cultural tourism development and revitalise the entire district.