Weissenfels

Weißenfels grew around a castle guarding a ford across the Saale and received town rights in 1185. The Thirty Years' War devastated it: its town population fell sharply, and in 1632 the body of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden was brought here after his death at nearby Lützen.

Duke Augustus chose Weißenfels as the capital of Saxe-Weissenfels in 1656. He began the great Baroque palace of Neu-Augustusburg in 1660, completed in 1680, it served as an administrative and cultural centre for his successors and attracted musicians including Johann Philipp Krieger and Georg Philipp Telemann. Johann Sebastian Bach dedicated his Hunting Cantata to Duke Christian of Saxe-Weissenfels in 1713. When the ducal line died out in 1746, the town returned to electoral Saxony; in 1815 it passed to Prussia.