No one forgets their first glimpse of Torgau. For Katharina, that first view of the small riverside town on the evening of Easter Saturday in 1523 was mightily reassuring. For the entire day, Katharina von Bora and the other runaway nuns had hid among the herring barrels in the back of Herr Köppe’s covered wagon. Never once did they dare to peek out. But now Leonhard Köppe paused by the side of the track and reassured the women that they need no longer fear for their safety. “Look, there’s Torgau,” he said. “We’ll be in the middle of town before long. You’ll be safe there. There will be food, a chance to sleep, and then after Easter it’ll be an easy journey down the Elbe Valley to Wittenberg to meet Herr Luther.”
If Wittenberg was the ecclesiastical centre of Martin Luther’s efforts to reform the Roman Catholic Church, Torgau was the political pivot of the Reformation in Germany. For the nine nuns who escaped from the Cistercian convent at Nimbschen, that Easter Sunday in Torgau was a first chance to discuss openly the new religious ideas which were sweeping through Saxony. There had been rumours for many months within the walls of the cloister at Nimbschen that some of the Augustinian monks just down the valley in Grimma were leaving their monastery, even a suggestion that the abbot himself was much taken by Luther’s teaching. But no one dared discuss these matters openly.
For Katharina, that escape to Torgau during the sacred days of the Triduum marked the end of 14 years in a convent where the rhythm of time was measured by the Liturgy of the Hours. From the convent at Nimbschen in the Mulde Valley, still chill and cold during Lent, Katharina’s uncomplicated view of the world was framed by Gallows Hill, which rises gently to the east on the other side of the river, and by the wooded slopes of the Hirschberg behind the convent. Now she was seeing, for the first time, the more expansive landscapes of the Elbe Valley and — most importantly — the city of Torgau which had afforded protection to Luther and others who had challenged the authority of the Pope and the entire Catholic hierarchy.
Along the Elbe
Katharina did not linger in Torgau. Nor do most visitors today. The town is a way station for cyclists who follow the long-distance bike path alongside the River Elbe, passing through some of the most beautiful communities in eastern Germany en route, from Königstein through Dresden and Meißen to Torgau, Wittenberg and beyond.
From handsome Torgau, the Elbe meanders downstream through a broad floodplain to reach Wittenberg where 500 years ago, on 31 October 1517, Martin Luther provocatively nailed to a door of the Castle Church his 95 theses questioning the authority of the Catholic Church.
Yet Torgau is in many ways the Elbe’s unsung star. Its buildings, Luther once proclaimed, “are more beautiful than all those of the ancient world.” The iconic view of the city is from the east bank of the river, looking across to Hartenfels Castle on the far side. From that vantage point, set by an avenue of trees which marks the east bank of the Elbe, Torgau looks tranquil. And yet, amid the cornflowers, daisies and poppies, is a reminder that things were not always quite so serene in this region. A quiet memorial recalls the happy moment towards the end of the Second World War when an American infantry patrol encountered Ukrainian and Russian soldiers here on the Elbe. It was the first point of contact between allies: the Americans advancing from the west and Soviet forces from the east. Less than two weeks later, defeated Germany had unconditionally surrendered, bringing the terrible war in Europe to an end.
From handsome Torgau, the Elbe meanders downstream through a broad floodplain to reach Wittenberg where 500 years ago, on 31 October 1517, Martin Luther provocatively nailed to a door of the Castle Church his 95 theses questioning the authority of the Catholic Church. Wittenberg has deftly played the Reformation card to its advantage, attracting a diligent stream of visitors who are keen to see the very spot where Luther started the Reformation in Germany. There is a national tendency in Germany, and above all in Wittenberg, to ignore pre-Lutheran reform movements (see box below) and even non-German contemporaries and successors of Luther — think Calvin, Zwingli and Knox — often get short shrift in the national narrative.
The Wittenberg reformers
Katharina made it to Wittenberg, arriving on the Tuesday after Easter in 1523. In those days, Wittenberg had just a couple of thousand residents. Life revolved around the small university and the church. Martin Luther, one-time renegade monk but now a radical professor, was frequently out and about in the streets and he was always sympathetic to nuns and monks who had escaped from cloistered lives to embrace the new reformed faith. A few days after the Nimbschen nuns arrived in Wittenberg, Luther wrote to Leonhard Köppe in Torgau, thanking him for his efforts in helping Katharina and the other nuns to flee.
Once in Wittenberg, Katharina played her cards carefully. When approached by a would-be suitor, she rebuffed the advance by saying that while marriage was not out of the question, she would prefer that Martin Luther be her spouse. Luther raised his eyebrows on hearing this. Katharina got her way (she usually did!) and married Martin Luther in 1525; he was 16 years her senior. Lucas Cranach’s famous portrait of Katharina shows an attractive woman, poised and evidently full of determination. That latter quality stood her in good stead as she busied herself managing the affairs and household of a man who through his ideas had an extraordinary capacity to mobilise thousands of followers. She commanded respect in university and church circles in Wittenberg in a way that transcended her position as Martin Luther’s wife.
Katharina outlived her husband by six years. Luther died in 1546, in the town of Eisleben where he was born 62 years earlier. It was not a place which figured greatly in his life, his parents having moved away from Eisleben a few months after Martin’s birth. But in mid-February 1546, Luther responded to an invite to preach in Eisleben, and while there he was taken seriously ill.
After Martin’s death, Katharina remained in Wittenberg. She had to fight for her inheritance, appealing to the Elector of Saxony for help. Widowhood did nothing to diminish her considerable energy and she continued to work in the various businesses which had taken so much of her time during 20 years of marriage. When in 1552 an outbreak of the plague hit Wittenberg, the university relocated to Torgau. Katharina followed the crowd, travelling back up the Elbe Valley along the very route which she had used almost 30 years earlier in the wake of her escape from the convent at Nimbschen. Along the way, Katharina fell from the cart in which she was travelling, sustaining injuries the severity of which were not immediately appreciated. She made it to Torgau, but her final weeks, lodging in a small house just a stone’s throw from Hartenfels Castle and within sight of St Mary’s Church were far from comfortable. Katharina died in Torgau on 20 December 1552 and was buried in St Mary’s.
500 years on
On the last Sunday in May this year, some 120,000 visitors crowded onto the meadows by the River Elbe near the town gate in Wittenberg to attend a church service and other events marking 500 years of the Reformation in Germany. It is extraordinary that a town of such modest proportions should have had such a remarkable impact on faith and theology. On that same Sunday, Torgau, just 60 kilometres upstream from Wittenberg, remained relatively empty.
Yet Torgau’s claim to be part of the Reformation narrative is well justified. The former Residenzstadt (residence) of the Electors of Saxony had the political muscle to further Luther’s cause, giving space and protection for new religious perspectives. Visitors to the Elbe city today can enter Hartenfels Castle and see the first purpose-built Protestant church in Germany (see box on page 36). The Torgau house where Katharina allegedly died has a small exhibition devoted to her life while the Church of St Mary holds a memorial to her — a tombstone with an epitaph.
Little more than two hours from Berlin by car, less than an hour from Leipzig, Torgau makes a fine introduction to a fascinating region of eastern Germany.
But there is something more. The German State of Saxony has beautiful cities aplenty. From historic Görlitz to Bautzen, perched on a rocky ledge above the Spree, from Zittau in the Neisse Valley to Meissen with its fine Gothic cathedral and historic links with the porcelain industry, not to mention Dresden. But Torgau stands out from the crowd for its serenity, its beauty and the manner in which a Renaissance townscape has been preserved.
Little more than two hours from Berlin by car, less than an hour from Leipzig, Torgau makes a fine introduction to a fascinating region of eastern Germany. In the Castle Garden, one might listen carefully and catch the whispers of runaway nuns and renegade monks, or hear echoes of the stern voices of men with power, such as the Electors of Saxony or even the Russian Tsar Peter the Great who visited Torgau in 1711 on the occasion of the marriage of his son Alexis. One might listen to the bells of Torgau’s many churches calling the faithful to prayer. For Torgau still has a special magnetism of the kind which Katharina discovered on that Easter Sunday in 1523.
Just as it was a place of refuge for early followers of Luther, so Torgau today is still a place for sanctuary. As the sun makes its evening benediction, dipping down below the splendid Renaissance facade of the town hall, the shadows in the main square lengthen. The three bears which live by the castle rampart retire to their night quarters and the fountain in the square is turned off. Children venture out to play in front of the town hall, while their parents sit on the benches around the square. Many are quite new to Torgau. They are newcomers to Germany looking for a better life. There are Syrian voices and Middle Eastern faces which carry all the hopes and fears of a generation. Just as in 1523, when those runaway nuns gave thanks for having arrived safely in Torgau, so today there are still people making a fresh start in life in this city by the Elbe.
