Torgau

Torgau (ˈtɔʁɡaʊ̯) is a town on the banks of the Elbe in northwestern Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nordsachsen. Outside Germany, the town is best known as where on 25 April 1945, the United States and Soviet Armies first met near the end of World War II. The settlement goes back to a Slavonic settlement named Turguo in the shire of Neletici. There was presumably a wooden Slavonic castle located on the site of the present-day Hartenfels castle. In the 10th century it fell under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire, and a stone castle was built, around which the settlement congregated. A market is attested in 1119. The town was located on the important trade route, the Via Regia Lusatiae inferioris, between Leipzig and Frankfurt an der Oder that crossed the river Elbe at a ford east of Torgau. Torgau belonged to the duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg, which in 1356 was raised to be the Electorate of Saxony. After the last Ascanian duke died without issue in 1423, the Electorate passed to the Wettin dynasty, which took up its residence at Torgau. Following the Treaty of Leipzig partition of the Wettin inheritance on 26 August 1485, Torgau fell to the Ernestine line. Frederick III, Elector of Saxony and his successors had Hartenfels Castle at Torgau built by architect Conrad Pflüger and his successor Konrad Krebs. The Ernestine court resided mainly in Torgau and in Weimar. From 1525 onward, Torgau became the sole residence. Hartenfels Castle is the largest completely preserved castle of the early Renaissance in Germany. After the Battle of Mühlberg in 1547, Torgau fell to the Albertine line. During the Reformation, the town council closed all cloisters in 1523. Citizens of Torgau destroyed paintings and statues of saints in the churches and stormed the Franciscan monastery. After Martin Luther had driven Andreas Karlstadt from Saxony in 1524, he enforced the expulsion of Karlstadt's followers from Torgau in 1529. Katharina von Bora, the widow of Luther, died in Torgau and is buried there in the Marienkirche.