The town that gave birth to the modern world
Wittenberg, pop. 2,135, welcomes two million visitors for 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s protest
In rural east Germany, Gunter, a hulking tree trunk of a man, is pounding together the steel frame of a lookout tower resembling a bible.
“This is a big year for us!” he exclaims over a chorus of jackhammers. “The world is coming, and we want to build something special so people remember who we are.”
Welcome to Wittenberg, a tiny town with a big heart and an even bigger bible.
You might have heard about this place in history class.
Here on Oct. 31, 1517, a monk walked down the street from his cloister, nailed a piece of parchment to the door of a church and sparked a revolution.
The rebel was Martin Luther, and his 95 theses railing against church corruption not only ripped Christianity in two, but propelled Europe from Middle Ages darkness to Renaissance humanism, inspired the Enlightenment and arguably gave birth to the modern Western world.
This year marks the 500th anniversary of Luther’s plea that triggered the Protestant Reformation.
From May to November, millions are expected to attend more than 2,000 events throughout Germany honouring Luther’s legacy.
But the centre of the jubilee is Wittenberg, a charming two-street town on the Elbe River.
By official estimates, upward of 2 million tourists will descend on Wittenberg this year.
For the past 10 years, the 2,135 residents of Wittenberg’s historical heart have been busy transforming this sleepy hamlet halfway between Berlin and Leipzig into something of a spiritual and cultural centre for the world’s 814 million Protestants and nearly 80 million Lutherans.
This year’s jubilee is easily the biggest thing to happen here in the last 499 years, and the town’s determined to nail it.
I quickly realized that Wittenberg is Luther — literally. The town changed its name to Lutherstadt Wittenberg in 1938, and today it exists as a sort of open-air shrine to the reformer who lived and preached here for most of his life.
I set out to retrace Luther’s famous march from his Augustinian monastery (now the Lutherhaus museum) to the Castle Church.
Religion aside, Wittenberg’s picture-perfect backdrop and upbeat spirit is enough to enchant those without the slightest interest in Luther.
Cheery guides in 16th-century shawls and medieval hoods lead tours through the town’s pastel-coloured mansions and steep-gabled towers.
Bikes bounce along the cobblestones and flowers bursting out of boxes hang over two trickling canals.
Remarkably, the town was largely spared from damage in the Second World War.
Even at 9 a.m., the outside of the Castle Church is buzzing with tourists.
A choir group from South Korea breaks into Luther’s famous hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God, and is quickly drowned out by drilling noises shaking the foundation of the church itself.
“You’ve come right in the heart of the tsunami,” says Wittenberg’s head of tourism, Kristin Ruske. “No one has ever hosted a 500-year jubilee before, so we’re learning as we go.”
The state of Saxony-Anhalt, the German government and the European Union have poured about $78 million into Wittenberg to help the town brace for this year’s flood of visitors.
On the river there’s now a floating hotel ship that can sleep 300 guests. There’s also an immensely popular 360-degree Luther panorama and the town is transforming its old prison into “Luther and the Avant-garde,” a contemporary art exhibition with paintings hanging in former cells.
It seemed like every Wittenberger I met was doing something endearing to make their tiny town a more welcoming place.
There’s Uwe Bechmann, a tour guide who recently strapped a camping stove to the back of his rickshaw and now sells sizzling “Lutherwursts.” (“If you like Luther and you like bratwurst, you’ll like Lutherwursts!”)
There’s Andreas Metschke, who runs a printing-press shop and has taught himself to greet guests in 17 languages. (“Next up: Swahili!”)
“I think that, in the past, Wittenbergers lived with the Reformation, but now some live off the Reformation,” said Johannes Block, head pastor at the Town Church of St. Mary, where Luther delivered more than 2,000 sermons. “Today only 12 per cent of Wittenbergers are Protestant.”
Ironically, the area around the Protestant mecca has recently made headlines as the “most godless” place on the planet.
According to a 2012 study by social scientists from the University of Chicago, east Germany is home to the highest percentage of atheists in the world, with just 8 per cent of its population claiming to believe in God.