Bernburg

Bernburg's castle rises above the eastern bank of the Saale, guarding a crossing on the road from Magdeburg towards Halle and Leipzig. The castle is securely recorded in 1138 and passed to the Anhalt branch of the Ascanian family in 1212. Below its sandstone height, old and new towns developed on the river plain. The princes of Anhalt rebuilt the medieval fortress as a Renaissance palace during the sixteenth century. After the division of Anhalt in 1603, Bernburg became the residence of a separate princely line. The palace suffered in the Thirty Years' War but remained the centre of the court; the bridge across the Saale, already recorded in the thirteenth century, was renewed in 1616.