German Info: Faith and Remembrance

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Faith and Remembrance

German Protestantism, Judaism and Catholicism have all had significant influences on the history and culture of the country. Today, they offer a rich variety of destinations for travelers looking to deepen their faith or their understanding of historic events.

Protestantism
Many cities and towns in Germany boast a connection to the great protestant reformer Martin Luther (1483 - 1546). He was born in Eisleben, studied in Eisenach, was ordained in Erfurt, and defended his doctrine in Worms. But it was in Wittenberg , his home for 30 years, where he posted his 95 theses and first
published his German translation of the New Testament. The city's Luther Hall is a comprehensive museum of the history of the Reformation. Luther's hideaway during the turbulences of that time, the Wartburg Castle near Eisenach, is another major historic site. The castle, dating from 1155, has been declared a World Cultural Heritage Monument by the United Nations.

Judaism
Jewish travelers will find reminders of Germany's early Jewish communities, their great influence on the development of German society in the 18th and 19th centuries, memorials to the devastation of the Holocaust, and a number of congregations rejuvenated by a recent influx of immigrants from the countries of the former Soviet Union.

Two of the most important sites - the New Synagogue and the Jewish Museum - are located in Berlin. The New Synagogue, a restoration of the 1860s structure that was nearly destroyed by bombing in WWII, is a center for education on Jewish life in Berlin and, with its gold-accented Moorish domes, a landmark of the central city. The Jewish Museum is already a visitor magnet less than a year after it opened in November 2001, and the Daniel Libeskind designed building was a tourist attraction even before the installation of permanent exhibits.

For a trip back in time to an era of thriving prosperity, no location offers as much as Worms, where a Jewish community flourished as far back as the 11th century and where Rashi, a legendary rabbi from that period, studied. The Jewish Museum in the Rashi House traces Jewish life in Worms. The city's Jewish cemetery is the oldest in Europe, with headstones dating from 1076.

Catholicism
Catholic tourists will find that monasteries, cathedrals, and pilgrimage sites are especially concentrated in Bavaria. There is the pilgrimage church Maria Hilf in Amberg, the Monastery of Weltenburg and the Benedictine Abbey Church St. George in Regensburg, and, in Bavaria's northern Franconia region, the Church of Fourteen Saints (Vierzehnheiligen), also a pilgrimage site. Cologne, seat of the world’s wealthiest catholic diocese, or district, not only boasts one of the world’s most impressive gothic cathedrals, but also a collection of romanesque basilicas that are among the most important architectural achievements of that period.