Sachsen-Anhalt, a constituent Land of the Federal Republic (see Bundesrepublik Deutschland). Created by the Soviet military administration in 1945, its territory belonged from 1949 to 1990 to the DDR (see Deutsche Demokratische Republik). The young state, which includes the lower Harz mountains with Wernigerode, has a number of places of ancient historical and cultural interest. They include Magdeburg, its capital, Halle, Wittenberg (see Luther and Wittenberg University), Quedlinburg, the native city of Klopstock with its castle and church (Stiftskirche) dating from the 10th c., the time of Heinrich I who is buried there and his widow Mathilde, and Halberstadt which, like Magdeburg, Halle, and Naumburg, is renowned for its medieval cathedral (Dom). Eike von Repgow wrote the Sachsenspiegel in Falkenstein, a castle in the Harz mountains (1220-35). Dessau became from the mid-1920s the home of the Bauhaus. Halle, Leuna, and Bitterfeld are among the industrial centres which emerged from the DDR period with serious ecological problems.

The Oxford Companion to German Literature. Copyright © 1976, 1986, 1997, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.