Landsberg is a town in the

Saalekreis Saalekreis is a district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The district seat is Merseburg. Its area is . It is bounded by (from the west and clockwise) the districts Kyffhäuserkreis (Thuringia), Mansfeld-Südharz, Salzlandkreis, Anhalt-Bitterfeld, ...

in the

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt ( ; ) is a States of Germany, state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.17 million inhabitants, making it the List of German states ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Geography

The town is located between the cities of Halle, about in the southwest,

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

, about in the southeast, and

Bitterfeld-Wolfen Bitterfeld-Wolfen () is a town in the district of Anhalt-Bitterfeld, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated in south-eastern Saxony-Anhalt, west of the river Mulde, in an area dominated by heavy industry and lignite mining. The town was formed by ...

, about in the north. Located in the

Leipzig Bay The Leipzig BayDickinson (1964), p. 29.North German Plain The North German Plain or Northern Lowland () is one of the major geographical regions of Germany. It is the German part of the North European Plain. The region is bounded by the coasts of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the north, Germany's ...

, Landsberg lies within the larger Leipzig-Halle agglomeration in the Central German Metropolitan Region. The municipal area immediately borders the

independent city An independent city or independent town is a city or town that does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity (such as a province). Historical precursors In the Holy Roman Empire, and to a degree in its successor states ...

of Halle in the southwest and the

Nordsachsen Nordsachsen (, ) is a district (''Districts of Germany, Kreis'') in Saxony, Germany. History The district was established by merging the former districts of Delitzsch (district), Delitzsch and Torgau-Oschatz as part of the district reform of Au ...

district of

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

in the southeast. After several incorporations in recent years, it currently comprises 11 localities (''Ortschaften''):Hauptsatzung der Stadt Landsberg
January 2020. * Braschwitz * Hohenthurm *Landsberg * Niemberg * Oppin * Peißen *Queis *Reußen * Schwerz *Sietzsch *Spickendorf Known far beyond Landsberg is the ''Felsenbad'' ("Cliff Bath"), a swimming pool complex with diving platforms, a stretch of competition swimming lanes, and a vast shallow pool where non-swimmers may bathe. Furthermore, the town is the namesake of the well known – in Germany – ''Landsberger Gemenge'' (roughly "Landsberg Batch"), a winter catch crop made out of crimson clover, Italian

ryegrass ''Lolium'' is a genus of tufted grasses in the bluegrass subfamily (Pooideae). It is often called ryegrass, but this term is sometimes used to refer to grasses in other genera. They are characterized by bunch-like growth habits. ''Lolium'' ...

and fodder

vetch ''Vicia'' is a genus of over 240 species of flowering plants that are part of the legume family (Fabaceae), and which are commonly known as vetches. Member species are native to Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Africa. Some other g ...

, which is used as livestock fodder or

silage Silage is fodder made from green foliage crops which have been preserved by fermentation (food), fermentation to the point of souring. It is fed to cattle, sheep and other ruminants. The fermentation and storage process is called ''ensilage'', ' ...

. Landsberg station is a stop on the

Berlin–Halle railway The Berlin–Halle railway, sometimes called the Anhalt railway (German: ''Anhalter Bahn''), is a twin-track, electrified main line found in the German city and state of Berlin, and the states of Brandenburg and Sachsen-Anhalt. The railway was o ...

, Halle–Cottbus railway, and Magdeburg-Leipzig railway lines.

History

The oldest known trace of early settlements in what is now Landsberg dates from the

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

. It is first documented as ''civitas holm'' in a 961 deed issued by King Otto I of Germany, then located in the Slavic lands beyond the southeastern borders of the

Duchy of Saxony The Duchy of Saxony () was originally the area settled by the Saxons in the late Early Middle Ages, when they were subdued by Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars from 772 CE and incorporated into the Carolingian Empire (Francia) by 804. Upon the 84 ...

along the

Saale The Saale (), also known as the Saxon Saale ( ) and Thuringian Saale (), is a river in Germany and a left-bank tributary of the Elbe. It is not to be confused with the smaller Fränkische Saale, Franconian Saale, a right-bank tributary of the M ...

River.

Landsberg Castle from the 12th century onwards was the seat of the Margraves of Landsberg. Held by the Saxon noble

House of Wettin The House of Wettin () was a dynasty which included Saxon monarch, kings, Prince Elector, prince-electors, dukes, and counts, who once ruled territories in the present-day German federated states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The dynas ...

, it was rebuilt when Margrave Conrad of Meissen ceded the

March of Lusatia The March or Margraviate of Lusatia () was an eastern border march of the Holy Roman Empire in the lands settled by Polabian Slavs. It arose in 965 in the course of the partition of the vast ''Marca Geronis''. Ruled by several Saxon margravial dy ...

with Landsberg to his son

Theodoric I Theodoric I (; ; 390 or 393 – 20 or 24 June 451) was the king of the Visigoths from 418 to 451. Theodoric is famous for his part in stopping Attila the Hun at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451, where he was killed. Early career In 41 ...

in 1156. A loyal follower of the

Hohenstaufen The Hohenstaufen dynasty (, , ), also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynast ...

emperor

Frederick Barbarossa Frederick Barbarossa (December 1122 – 10 June 1190), also known as Frederick I (; ), was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death in 1190. He was elected King of Germany in Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned in Aachen on 9 March 115 ...

, Theoderic accompanied him on his

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

campaign of 1176/77 against the cities of the

Lombard League The Lombard League (; ) was an alliance of cities formed in 1167, and supported by the popes, to counter the attempts by the Hohenstaufen Holy Roman emperors to establish direct royal administrative control over the cities of the Kingdom of It ...

and witnessed the peace negotiations leading to the Treaty of Venice. Back in

, he had a Staufian double chapel erected on the Landsberg castle hill. Built in a Romanesque style up on a cliff and visible even far from the town, it is one of Landsberg's landmarks up to today. When the Wettin margrave Henry III of Meissen about 1258 re-established the Margraviate of Landsberg for his second son

Theodoric Theodoric is a Germanic given name. First attested as a Gothic name in the 5th century, it became widespread in the Germanic-speaking world, not least due to its most famous bearer, Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Overview The name w ...

, Landsberg Castle had already lost its status as the margravial residence to

Weißenfels Weißenfels (; often written in English as Weissenfels) is the largest town of the Burgenlandkreis district, in southern Saxony-Anhalt, central Germany. It is situated on the river Saale, approximately south of Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Halle. His ...

. Upon the death of Theoderic's son Frederick Tuta in 1291, Landsberg fell to the Ascanian margrave Otto IV of Brandenburg. During decades of feuds between the Wettin and Ascanian dynasties the castle decayed and today only traces of wall remain. The settlement at the foot of the castle arose around the St Nicholas parish church dating from the 13th century. In 1579, the citizens of Landsberg were granted

town privileges Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the traditio ...

by the Saxon electors, though on condition not to erect city fortifications. Severely damaged during the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

, the Landsberg double chapel about 1658/62 was restored at the behest of the Wettin duke Christian I of Saxe-Merseburg. In 2019, two people were killed and two others were injured in a

terrorist attack Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war a ...

in the city of Halle. Two of the injuries occurred in the city of Landsberg.

Coat of arms

The town's

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...

, called "Landsberg Pales" (''Landsberger Pfähle'') according to heraldic

blazon In heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of a coat of arms, flag or similar emblem, from which the reader can reconstruct an accurate image. The verb ''to blazon'' means to create such a description. The visual d ...

, is first known to have appeared in the late 12th century, and the margraves of the Wettin dynasty, local rulers since the 10th century, used it as their arms.Heraldrywiki
/ref> The blue Landsberg Pales appear on the coat of arms of numerous towns and cities in Central Germany, such as

Chemnitz Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt (); ; ) is the third-largest city in the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden, and the fourth-largest city in the area of former East Germany after (East Be ...

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

(in black), and

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Towns in Saxony-Anhalt Saalekreis