23

Alma Mater Lipsiensis

It all began in 1409 with a decision by King Wenceslas IV of Bohemia to tilt the balance of votes at the University of Prague, which until then had been divided equally between the four nations of Bohemia, Saxony, Poland and Bavaria, in favor of his fellow countrymen. The horror and uproar among the professors was so great that around 80% of the teaching staff, including the rector and many mainly German students, left the university and Prague. Hundreds of masters and scholars moved to Leipzig, which, as a flourishing trading and trade fair city, seemed suitable for a new foundation.

The Margrave of Meissen, Frederick IV of Wettin, also saw this as an opportunity to promote the development of his country and applied to the Pope for permission to teach, which was quickly granted. In December, the opening was celebrated in what was then St. Thomas’ Monastery and, in addition to the Studium Generale that was already underway, the Faculty of Philosophy and the Faculty of Medicine, Jurisprudence and Theology were founded.

It soon became apparent that the founding fathers had calculated correctly. The city’s location, the openness to the world brought about by trade, but also the growing needs of the German territorial states for their elites’ education caused the importance of the university to rise rapidly, generously supported by sovereign and ecclesiastical funds. Its orientation changed with the Reformation, but its importance continued to grow and stabilize in the period that followed. Over the centuries, luminaries of every scientific discipline gathered here, while the hundreds of students who later became famous include not only the notorious Goethe, but also men such as Leibnitz, Nietzsche, Heisenberg and Bloch.
One of the many innovators is depicted on this plaque, which is located at one of the entrances to the university building: Wilhelm Wundt, philosopher and physician, actually founded a new science here with the Institute of Experimental Psychology.

22

The Queen of All Fruits

The year 1492 has a special significance in the transition from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period: the Reconquista ends with the fall of Granada and as a result Columbus sets off for the Indies and lands on large islands off the American continent. From his first voyage he brought back, among other things, crates full of exotic fruit from Guadalupe. But while the potatoes didn’t mind the long journey, he was less fortunate with a load of pineapples: only by chance did a few survive, some say that it was only the one the explorer presented to King Ferdinand. This fruit was beautiful in its perfect symmetry, resembled a pine cone and was therefore affectionately called piña. The enthusiasm knew no bounds and one aficionado even went so far as to claim that only the divine Venus was worthy of picking the Queen of Fruits.

Of course, it wasn’t just the crown-like tuft and golden color that made them so precious. Pineapples remained an absolute rarity until the 17th century, because it took until then for a gardener – it was the one of the English King Charles II – to present his master with a ripe fruit grown in a greenhouse, later called a pinery. Other pineapple lovers had to suffer longingly, as voyages by ship from the indies were still far too long for imports and most of the fruit arrived inedible. Curiously, the shortage in England led to individual specimens being borrowed and presented as the highlight of a feast, only to be sent to the next party by a servant after being sufficiently admired.

It is not known whether the architects of the New Grassi Museum were remembering these times of glory when they placed a golden pineapple on the rather plain Art Deco building. But it is known that Franz Dominic Grassi made his fortune, which he largely bequeathed to the city of Leipzig and from which this building was financed, in parts from trading in tropical fruits.

21

Out in the Suburbs

In the 17th century, cities were still surrounded by a ring of fortifications, outside of which the suburbs layed. Craftsmen such as tanners lived there, whose foul-smelling yards were not wanted in the city, but there were also vegetable gardens and farms that helped to feed the city. Towards the end of the century, the fortifications gradually lost their importance, although it took some time before they were demolished. With the permission of the Saxon Elector, the Leipzig Council released the land for development and many noblemen and merchants bought land to build gardens out here, often based on the French model.

Caspar Bose, who came from a well-known Leipzig family and ran a gold and silver manufactory, had a keen interest in gardening, among many other things. He expanded a family-owned garden in the eastern suburbs into a spectacular baroque garden with exotic plants from all over the world. Over the course of the next century, around thirty magnificent gardens were built in Leipzig, among which his brother Georg’s in the western suburb and the Apel Garden were particularly famous and admired beyond the city.

The owner of the latter, the merchant Andreas Dietrich Apel, had been given additional land as a gift by the Saxon Elector and, together with the master gardener and architect David Schatz, created one of the most magnificent Baroque gardens in Germany. Schatz had several side arms of the Pleiße river run through the landscape of avenues, arcades, pavilions and fountains, which could be navigated by boats and gondolas and used for Venetian parties in a breathtaking atmosphere. The Elector was so enthusiastic that he commissioned Apel to oversee the Dresden Orangery. He also lent him the sculptor Balthasar Permoser, who created the statue of Juno shown here for the garden entrance.

20

Speaking with the Past

Steibs Court is one of the most striking building complexes on Nikolaistraße, which is not short of striking buildings. What is fascinating here is the mixture of interesting commercial architecture, which shows that it was built around 1910, and this exorbitantly magnificent central building, which exaggerates the neo-baroque style to such an extent that, if you like it, your eyes almost tear up with happiness: the opulent portal with the balustrade above it, the ornamentation on the right and left and the lavish window decorations, the two half-figures depicting a merchant ship and a hammer above the top window and finally the globe, which stretches its continents towards the sky like a giant transmitter. But the most interesting, because unexpected, thing is what is under the top window: the year 1687 and a relief of three old houses.

The master builder Felix Steub had these three houses from the 17th century demolished in order to build in 1907 one of these modern trade fair palaces, which replaced many old buildings at the time. Nikolaistraße runs through the old trading quarter, which was built around the church of the same name in the 12th century. But nothing remains of architectural evidence, even from the Renaissance. Of course, this was also due to the fact that, in addition to destruction caused by war and occupation, there were repeated fires and new buildings had to be constructed. But it was only with the reinvention of the inner city since the end of the 19th century that most of it disappeared, except for a saved detail here or a reminiscence there.

Sabine Lange, [19.12.24 22:50]
At the turn of the millennium, however, when many of the houses between Nikolaistraße and Brühl were to be renovated (some of which were in a threatening state of disrepair), archaeologists were allowed to dig for that past that was no longer visible. In some of the still well-preserved latrines around Deutrichs Hof in particular, shards, kitchen utensils, pots and even pieces of once precious glassware were found, providing information about the households that once lived there and opening a small window into the past.

19

Zeppelins in Leipzig

It all began in 1909 when, after years of testing, the first series of Zeppelin airships were built and used for commercial passenger transportation. Three years later, Leipzig citizens founded the “Leipzig Airship Port and Airport Company“, which began construction in Mockau. The airship hangar, which was considered the largest in the world at the time, was completed after just six months. The King of Saxony had reserved the inauguration of the airfield and hangar for himself and, to the applause of the enthusiastic visitors, two of the sky giants landed in the afternoon. On board the “Sachsen” was the aged Count Zeppelin, who had not missed the flight for the celebration. Postcards showing the two airships side by side in the hall were even printed later to commemorate the occasion.

Until the start of the First World War, several hundred Zeppelins and airplanes took off from Mockau, after which the airport was only used for military purposes. The large airship hangar collapsed in early 1917 under a massive snow load and burned down completely in the following explosion.

Another place in Leipzig still reminds us of the Count and the enthusiasm his airships aroused. In 1908, the furs merchant Felix Reimann bought an old house on Nikolaistraße, in which the city council had once brewed beer. Reimann had the old building and the one on the neighboring property torn down and a large commercial building erected in their place. He named it Zeppelin House in memory of the airship count, as can be read on the plaque above the central entrance, which is held by two putti. A medallion with a portrait of Ferdinand von Zeppelin is attached one floor higher.
After a thorough renovation, the building now houses the Institute of Communication and Media Studies at Leipzig University.

18

An Icy, Somewhat Peculiar Story

In the old days, when whale oil and whalebone were still expensive commodities, a German merchant equipped a ship to hunt whales and seals off Greenland. But the ship ran into stormy seas, chunks of ice hit a leak in the ship’s side and when thick fog rolled in, the crew thought they were doomed. Until, so the story goes, a saving angel shot through the waves, in a pointed boat made of seal skin and bones. Not only did he manage to save all the sailors, but also guided the ship to a nearby bay where it could be made seaworthy again.

Later, the ship’s owner, a certain Martin Haugk from Leipzig, invited the brave Greenlander, along with his boat and equipment, to his house on Petersstraße to spend the rest of his days there. But the man only made it as far as Lübeck, where he fell ill and died. Deeply saddened, the Saxon merchant had him buried properly, but first commissioned a wood sculptor to carve the Greenlander’s portrait and had the picture, boat and equipment sent to Leipzig, where he hung everything on the ceiling of his comptoir.

Today, people would probably shake their heads in dismay at the whole thing. In any case, the merchant’s house later passed into other hands, the boat and equipment were stored in the attic and after some years handed over to the Leipzig Ethnological Museum. Around 1900, Haugk’s House was covered into a trade fair building and called ‘Zum Grönländer’ (The Greenlander), who can be seen in his kayak on a bronze relief above the entrance. The fall of the Berlin Wall also saved this building, which had fallen into severe disrepair during the GDR years. Today, a gold-coloured relief with the image of the brave saviour shines above the entrance again.

17

Leipzig’s most famous composer

When Johann Sebastian Bach came to Leipzig in the spring of 1723, a period of uncertain waiting lay behind him. What seems unimaginable today: he was not the first choice for the position of cantor at St Thomas. Among the composers considered, Graupner and Fasch were stuck in their employment contracts and Telemann, who had been chosen, was better paid in Hamburg and turned the offer down. Only then did Bach come up for discussion and finally the council accepted him without much enthusiasm.

Today, it is hard to imagine Leipzig without the man from Eisenach. St Thomas Church and its choir, the Bach Museum and Bach Archive, over 150 surviving cantatas, as well as the Passions and the Christmas Oratorio – a success story, one would think. If we could ask him, he would perhaps furrow his brow, because he was not an easy artist to deal with and the terms of his contract were not favourable. (pleasant for him.)
He had to submit to the City Council in all conditions and the church authorities also had the right to object. He wanted to have a say in the selection of boys for St Thomas School and choir, as the pupils often were musically unsuitable.He was turned down on many occasions and the conflicts never ended. When he fell ill and died after 27 years of service, the city didn’t pay much attention.

Nevertheless, there are two Bach memorials in Leipzig today. The older one was donated by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who brought Bach’s works to a renaissance, and stands near St Thomas Church. The second, on which you can finally see the composer himself, was consecrated in May 1908 and now stands directly in front of St Thomas’s Bach window.
The cantor looks a little dishevelled in his open coat, as if he had been torn from his work. With a roll of music in one hand and the other just removed from the organ, he looks confidently over the city that he has helped to make so famous.

16

Around the Mädler Passage

Everyone knows Auerbach’s Cellar, at least anyone who has ever read Faust.If it’s astonishing that a contemporary of Luther’s and rector of Leipzig University stood at the origin of the story, it is even more surprising that the man found the time to open a wine bar. However, it really was a little different.

Heinrich Stromer came to Leipzig in 1497 to study medicine. After eleven years he was already rector, a little later professor and known up even to the imperial court; they called him Doctor Auerbach after his birthplace in the Upper Palatinate. He bought a farm in Grimmaische Straße from his father-in-law and also a few other houses and had a trading court built, one of the most important ones in Leipzig for a long time. There had already been vaults with a wine bar under the old courtyard, which the doctor had expanded:Auerbach’s Court and Cellar were born and became very popular, with well-known consequences.

Around 1900, when many of the old courtyards in the city centre were demolished and built over with large trade fair palaces, Commercial Councillor Anton Mädler, who also owned a factory for bag-making goods, acquired the entire complex. His plans for reconstruction attracted the attention of Auerbach’s Keller lovers all over the world, but Mädler had some understanding and the famous restaurant was preserved and even enlarged. After completion, the new passage opened as a trade fair centre for leather goods, wines and porcelain; even those in charge during the GDR era did not change this. Today, the Mädler Passage is considered the largest and most beautiful in the city, a gem that is in no way inferior to comparable buildings in Brussels or Milan. In addition to many remarkable architectural details, it is adorned with a very special piece of artistry: a 24-piece carillon made of Meissen porcelain, a gift from city to city, which chimes out various songs several times a day.

15

Leipziger Lerchen, so und auch anders

English text

14

Letters, paintings and a whale

If you want to find out more about the printing arts in Leipzig, the best place to go is the museum of the very same name. You can find there everything related to book production: from simple cast lead letters to matrices, printing presses, binding machines and gilding tools. For a book city like Leipzig, it is only natural that its art school is called the Academy of Graphic and Book Art (HGB); but it also houses classes for painting, media art and photography. The HGB emerged in the classic way from a Royal Academy of Painting and has its current name since the 1950s.

The Leipzig Academy was always good for things that did not yet exist elsewhere. It was the first art school in Germany to open up study to women and played such a pioneering role that by 1913 the number of female students exceeded that of their male colleagues. The departments of arts & crafts and sculpture were discontinued and the focus shifted to graphic design and book art. After World War II, the so-called Leipzig School established itself with painters such as Tübke, Mattheuer, Rink and Bernhard Heisig, who brought the university into international spotlight; decades later, a group centred around Rink and Heisig student Neo Rauch stirred up the international art market under the name New Leipzig School.

A unique project of a completely different kind took place in 2002, when students led by anatomy professor Ingo Garschke uncovered the skeleton of a 30-ton sperm whale that had stranded in the North Sea and transported it to Leipzig. After difficult preparation and assembly, it became the showpiece of the anatomy room. The HGB is one of few German universities, where artistic anatomy is still part of the curriculum. It is always good for something special.

13

Metamorphoses

Change sometimes happens gradually, sometimes like a revolution, after which you first have to clean up and then build anew. This also applies to German trade fairs. For centuries, everything had worked according to a tried and tested pattern, until around 1800, when many parameters suddenly changed. The introduction of the steam engine increased productivity and the output of goods; new means of transport changed routes and transport times. In addition, the founding of the German Empire abruptly abolished all customs duties, as well as the privileges the Emperor had once guaranteed. Trading courts that had been run for generations became impractical, too small and unsuitable for presenting large machines. For all these reasons, a new concept was developed in Leipzig: apart from one sample of each product, traders left their goods at home and visitors could look at everything in the exhibition halls, try it out and order it. Perfect.

Except for the fact that the owners of the old trading houses had to think big. They decided to tear down and rebuild according to requirements. Although many of the Renaissance and Baroque buildings were lost, complexes were created that are typical of Leipzig’s city centre today. Not everything fell victim to the wrecking ball; new buildings were often built over a number of old courtyards and properties or connected them with each other. The Städtisches Kaufhaus or the Mädlerpassage with their large exhibition areas are examples of the new way of presenting goods, which also helped to consolidate the trade fair trade. The attachment in this picture belongs to one of the oldest elevators still in existence, indicates the floor height and is one of many beautiful details the trade fair buildings still surprise with today.

12

Choirboys in Shirts and Coats

A sigh of emotion almost always goes through a church or concert hall when the youngest members of a boys’ choir march in. How cute they look in their blouses or shirts, while the older ones, usually once their voices break, already appear in a suit. At least that’s the case with the Thomaner. The soprano and alto singers wear what is known as a Kiel blouse, dark blue with a white decorated turn-down collar, which – as the name suggests – has its origins in the navy. The sailor suit was popularised as children’s fashion by the English royal court and because the German Emperor Wilhelm II was the grandson of Queen Victoria, he received such a suit as a gift from her and brought the fashion to Germany. The Thomaner, at least the younger ones, have been wearing the Kiel blouse for more than a hundred years and, as it is said, at the request of that very emperor.

The choir originated with the founding of St Thomas’s School in the thirteenth century, making it one of the oldest in the German-speaking world. Pupils of St Thomas’ School, like students of other Latin schools, had to perform certain tasks in return for board and lodging, which included singing in church services, at weddings, funerals and other occasions. After secularisation, the denomination changed, but the tasks remained the same. As in the centuries before, pupils went from house to house at Christmas as carol singers and asked for gifts. The simple black wheel coats, with or without turn-down collars, are familiar today from the famous Kurrende singers made by wood carvers from the Saxon Erzgebirge; St Thomas’ pupils certainly once wore such coats. It goes without saying that even before Johann Sebastian Bach took up his post, their singing duties and artistry surpassed those of most other Latin schools. It should be mentioned however, that there was a time when the young singers were not only put into a coat, but also under a wig and tricorn hat. They escaped this discomfort at the latest with the arrival of Kaiser Wilhelm and the Kiel blouse.

11

A Palm Tree in the Churchyard

Civic spirit and civic pride go hand in hand in Leipzig, which is perhaps not surprising in a city that lies at the crossroads of two trade routes. An expression of this is St. Nicholas Church in the city centre. Although there was probably a small church in honour of this patron saint of merchants and travellers in ancient times, the citizens began to build a solid one with round arches and double towers soon after the granting of market and city rights in 1165. Over the centuries, the shape of the church changed, but not only the external one. It was here where the Reformation began for the people of Leipzig. Luther did not stand on the pulpit named after him, even though he preached seven times in the city, but the great reformer of church music, Johann Sebastian Bach, worked at St. Nicholas, and many important men such as Olearius, Leibniz, Seume and Wagner taught and learnt at the adjoining school.

Viewed in this light, it is not surprising that a much later upheaval began in this very church. Under the motto ‘Swords into ploughshares’, prayers for peace had been held here every Monday since the early 1980s, despite government interference and sanctions; in a space that invited peaceful protest and kept violence outside. And so it was here that a large demonstration began to form on October 9, 1989, which peacefully but forcefully ushered in the end of the GDR and opened the way to a reunified Germany.

To remember all this, the churchyard of St. Nicholas was transformed into a successful memorial site. The beautiful palm tree column with its multi-layered symbolism, designed as a quotation of the classicist columns inside the church, now carries the spirit of departure out into the open.

10

The Elephants Are on the Loose!

Now, as a Leipzig resident, you don’t have to worry, because even though elephants have been on display in the local zoo for more than a hundred years, the two fellows at Schuhmachergässchen No. 1 are well-behaved, life-sized, copper-engraved and have been busy keeping the pagoda-decorated Riquet House in order since 1909. They also guard the entrance to Café Riquet, in whose interior you can discover other small elephants here and there.

Their story began in 1745, when Jean George Riquet, born in Magdeburg, founded a Colonial Grosso business in Leipzig. The Riquets were Huguenots and had fled France when their religion was banned. Jean George imported luxury goods from overseas, including coffee, cocoa and chocolates as well as tea and spices. His company became an insider tip in Leipzig and even the young studiosus Goethe soon became addicted to this sweet temptation. In later years and when he was travelling, he had his wife send him chocolate bars, but they had to be Riquet’s, his declared favourite. An excuse for this greed was at hand, as it was said at the time that chocolate had a stabilising effect on health, which Johann Wolfgang discussed with Jean George in a lively exchange of letters.

A hundred years later, the Riquet Company had expanded and, due to immense demands, had finally built its own factory for chocolate and other sweets. The company’s trademark was an elephant and in 1897 at the STIGA, the Saxon-Thuringian Trade Exhibition, the company showed its products in an Asian-style pavilion flanked by two large elephants. No wonder that ten years later when building the Riquethaus, architect Paul Lange used this attractive design as a model.

9

At the Crossroads of Ancient Routes

Two great long-distance roads have crossed Europe since ancient times: the Via Imperii and the Via Regia. While one ran from north to south, from Stettin to Rome, the other crossed the continent from west to east. And even though the core of the Via Regia stretched from the Rhineland to Silesia, travellers found extensions to Spain in one direction and to Russia in the other. Whichever business people were travelling on here, the roads were mainly long-distance trade routes.

What do people do when they come to a major crossroads? They drive on, they rest or, after a brief consideration, they set up a rest stop themselves, which becomes a settlement, which becomes a market place. More and more long-distance traders rest here, offering their goods, exchanging information, establishing innovations and thus attracting other people. Thus the hurried time lapse, under whose whizzing many things remain unconsidered.

The place in question, the one by the lime trees, was called Lipsia at some point, then Leipzig. It was granted city and market rights, the staple right, under which every merchant passing through had to offer his goods for at least a few days; and finally, around 1500 and by Maximilian I, it was granted the imperial trade fair privilege and the mile right. From then on, competing towns were no longer allowed to hold a market or even offer temporary storage for trade goods within 15 miles, that is around 112 kilometres. Leipzig thus became the largest transshipment centre for the exchange of goods between East and West, first holding three, then two large trade fairs a year, and built trading yards and offices, where foreign merchants settled. For centuries, their wagons travelled the old routes throughout Europe for their own profit and that of their city.

8

The Street of Furs

The façade of the house at Brühl no. 74 shows reliefs of various animals, there are foxes, squirrels, and even a bear climbing above the arch of the skylight. The house belonged to the brothers Abraham and Sacharje Assuschkewitz, who ran a fur company here. The company name still winds across a ribbon under the second floor; the building itself documents the time when the city was an important center of the European fur trade.

The Brühl is one of the oldest streets in Leipzig, running along the Via Regia, and was once synonymous with the trade in ‘soft gold’, bringing a lot of money into the city’s coffers since the Middle Ages. The most beautiful and softest furs came from Asia and Eastern Europe, brought to the west by Jewish traders from Galicia, who settled in Leipzig when it was slowly allowed again, after the Wars of Liberation. Many trading courts along the Brühl were built by them and at the beginning of the last century a third of the world’s fur trade took place here.

The Jewish community grew and its wealthier members not only built prayer rooms and synagogues, but also had a beneficial effect on the whole city. Chaim Eitigon, who came from the Russian settlement area, was one of the most successful fur traders in Leipzig; the company had branches in Moscow, Paris and New York. One of his foundations ran a hospital open to patients of all religions, while another awarded pensions to merchants’ widows under the same rule.
When the Nazis took power, many companies moved abroad, and eight years later it was announced that Brühl was ‘Judenrein’ (free of Jews). Today, only names like Harmelin, Gloeck and Ariowitsch remind us of these former neighbours, their lives and their fate.

7

About House Names and House Signs

We are so familiar with street names and house numbers that we don’t even think about what we would do without them. Although street names already existed in the High Middle Ages, it is astonishing to realise that the first houses, such as those in Augsburg’s Fuggerei, were not given a number until the 16th century, while an Europe-wide introduction of numbering as a standard took until the middle of the 18th century.

Of course, houses were also labelled in earlier times, as they represented an important property and made it easier to find your way around, especially in towns. So-called house marks, simple graphic signs similar to those used by stonemasons, were used for this purpose: carved into the house, but also marking other property. This was practical, as very few people could read at the time.

Later they were replaced by house marks, more or less elaborately crafted and usually placed above the front door or portal: a golden sun, a white eagle or other memorable objects, which increasingly often also indicated the owner’s occupation, giving the house its name. Today, they are most frequently found on old inns, which are still called Red-Hart Inn or Blue Pike.

When a dilapidated house was demolished, the preserved house sign often adorned the subsequent building; others are new creations that refer to the old name. The sign shown here belongs to the Thüringer Hof, Leipzig’s oldest beer pub, and shows the brewers’ guild sign in a hexagonal star formed from two superimposed triangles.

5

Letters, Colour and Paper

In a parallel universe, Leipzig would not have been built on seams of coal, but on deposits of countless books; and printing ink would flow through the veins of the people of Leipzig instead of blood. Exaggerated? Just maybe.

The city has been involved in book printing since the invention of the printing press. Although Frankfurt led the way for centuries, Leipzig followed with Luther and the Reformation. So Melchior Lotter set the famous 95 Theses in his Leipzig workshop, along with many other writings by the reformer.

Leipzig’s great book era began three hundred years later. The number of publishers exploded, the manufacturing industry expanded, all settled in a district that was later called the Graphic Quarter. A 1900 address book lists almost a thousand publishers and bookshops, and around four hundred printing and bookbinding companies. Shortly before the First World War, one in ten Leipzig residents worked with or on books; in 1914 the city hosted the world’s largest book fair and thirteen years later the International Book Art Exhibition.

The first turning point came in 1933, and Leipzig never recovered from the second in December 1943: the Graphic Quarter was reduced to rubble and ashes, along with around 50 million books. After the war, most publishers went to West Germany and Frankfurt took the crown again. Nevertheless, the city remained the most important publishing center in the GDR alongside Berlin. The new beginning after 1989 and many newly established publishers changed the situation again. But Henselmann’s skyscraper still stands like an open book above the city, as if it had grown out of the magical book seams.

4

The Two Lives of Little Mr. MM

Every child in Eastern Germany knew it, not only because this cute creature was such a nice souvenir. They called it Messemännchen, little Trade Fair Man, and he was the mascot of the Leipzig Trade Fair since 1964. The artist and puppeteer Gerhard Behrendt, who had created him, was also the „father“ of another famous puppet called Sandmännchen, which had a daily TV-Show for children. So what could be more cool than to show them visiting each other at the Fair twice a year – an exciting event for the little ones and a nice advertising opportunity for company and state. It was important to show how the famous city at the crossroads of two old trade routes had retained its role as mediator between East and West.

With the German reunification in 1990, Mr. MM was sent into retirement, at least for the next fourteen years. But then, on his fortieth birthday, he rose again like phoenix from the ashes: not only the people of Leipzig, but also many exhibitors had wanted him back, with the globe under his hat, the suitcase in his hand and even the pipe in a corner of his mouth. In case anyone is wondering why a double M adorns the little hat: not the abbreviation of MesseMännchen, but of MusterMesse, a trade concept invented in Leipzig in 1895 that made it much easier to handle sales.

2

The Land of Red Porphyry

No visitor to Central Saxony can pass by without seeing the typical colours everywhere: used as window lintel, door decoration, historical tombstone or even as the cladding of an entire building.
If the origin of the sandstone lies in the primeval Thetis Sea, the porphyry was born of fire; more precisely, it was a volcano whose gigantic ejection of magma and ash more than 260 million years ago heaped up a huge mountain and led to the formation of the red tuff, which is called Rochlitzer Pophyr after the place where it was found.

As early as the Bronze Age, exposed chunks of rock were processed into millstones, and from the twelfth century onwards porphyry was mined in quarries. Around the same time, the stone experienced its first heyday as a building material, as the Wechselburg Basilica and the Rochlitz Kunigunden Church attest. A few centuries later, Hieronymus Lotter used it to build the Leipzig Old Town Hall, and the townspeople and farmers in the surrounding countryside also decorated their houses and farmsteads with the red tuff.

Because porphyry can be worked like a soft stone, it quickly became of interest to sculptors and stonemasons, because the softer the stone, the more delicate the possibilities. With its magnificent colours, alternating between red and violet, it was even the first German stone to make it onto the list of natural world stone heritage.

And even though porphyry lead a rather shadowy existence in GDR architectural history, it was remembered in Leipzig when the demolished Hotel de Saxe got a successor: It was given a neo-baroque portal made of warm red stone.

1

Strong Elixirs

The malicious bon mot about the coffee addictet Saxons, with which the Prussian King Frederick II mocked their fighting spirit in the Seven Years War, shows that no Saxon, maybe with the exception of the Viennese, can do without their bowl of hot black coffee. Whether Dutch merchants sold the first sack of beans in Leipzig in 1670 or some twenty years later, it was a sensational appearance with consequences.

One bar after another opened its doors and the popularity was so great that the Leipzig authorities soon issued a Coffee House Ordinance to completely root out the harbours of immorality and gambling addiction. The main aim of the raids was to drive out the weaker sex; they were forbidden even to work there, although women owned and ran some of those establishments.

Visibly unaffected by these misfortunes, Leipzig’s most contented coffee drinker still leans over the portal of house no. 4 in Kleine Fleischergasse. Stretched out comfortably, with a smart feather on his turban, he has a cute putto serve him a bowl of black coffee. The golden blossoming tree behind him gave the house its name ‘Zum Arabischen Coffe Baum’ and is Germany’s oldest continuously operating coffee bar. Everyone has sat in its parlours: from Augustus the Strong, who regularly indulged his addiction here, to the Alpha and Omega of musicians, writers and theatre people, professors, students, politicians, revolutionaries and ordinary Leipzig citizens, seeking conversation, distraction and relaxation from their daily business.
Frederick II soon overran Prussia with coffee taxes and coffee spies, while the manufacture of coffee grinders boomed in Leipzig. But that’s another story.