WITTENBERG

city, Saxony-Anhalt Land (state), north-central Germany, on the Elbe River, southwest of Berlin. First mentioned in 1180 and chartered in 1293, it was the residence of the Ascanian dukes and electors of Saxony from 1212 until it passed, with electoral Saxony, to the House of Wettin in 1423. Wittenberg University, made famous by its teachers, the religious reformers Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon, was founded by the elector Frederick the Wise in 1502 and was absorbed by the University of Halle in 1817. In 1547, when John Frederick the Magnanimous signed the Capitulation of Wittenberg, the electorate passed from the Ernestine to the Albertine line of the Wettins, and the town ceased to be the official residence. The city was occupied in 1806 by the French, who strengthened its fortifications in 1813; the fortress was stormed by the Prussians in 1814, and the city was assigned to them in 1815. The Reformation started in Wittenberg on Oct. 31, 1517, when Luther may have nailed his famous Ninety-five Theses to the wooden doors of the Castle Church. (See Researcher's Note.) The doors were destroyed in a fire of 1760, and the church, containing the graves of Luther and the Reformers, was seriously damaged then and in 181314. It has been restored, and the bronze doors of 1858 bear the Latin text of Luther's Theses. Other notable buildings include the castle (149099), the town hall (152440), the residences of the Reformers, and the town church (1300), which houses an altarpiece by Lucas Cranach the Elder (14721553), court painter to the Saxon electors and a town councillor and burgomaster of Wittenberg. Wittenberg's river harbour and its position as a railway junction aided its industrialization. The chemical industry, especially the nationally owned nitrogen works at Piesteritz, is important; a large fertilizer plant was built in the late 1970s. Pop. (1989 est.) 53,358.