Erfurt - City of Germany

Erfurt is a city in central Germany. Erfurt is located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nürnberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich.

Since the Reunification of Germany on October 3, 1990, Erfurt is the main city nearest to the geographical centre of the country. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, within the wide valley of Gera River, a tributary of the Unstrut. To the south, the city is surrounded by the hilly forest of Steigerwald.

Erfurt was first mentioned in 742 under the name of "Erphesfurt". It was an important trading town during the Middle Ages near a ford across the Gera river. Together with the other five Thuringian woad-towns of Gotha, Tennstedt, Arnstadt and Langensalza it was the centre of the German woad trade.

In 1349, during the wave of pogroms which followed the Black Plague across Europe, the Jews of Erfurt were rounded up, with more than 100 killed and the rest driven from the city. Recently, the medieval synagogue have been discovered beneath newer buildings, and are being restored until 2009.

After German reunification, Erfurt became the capital of the re-established state of Thuringia.

On April 26, 2002, the student Robert Steinhäuser killed thirteen teachers, two students, a police officer and himself at Erfurt's Gutenberg-Gymnasium school .

Martin Luther attended the University of Erfurt and received his bachelor's and master's degrees of theology there. Luther lived there as a student from 1501 to 1511 and, as a monk, from 1505 to 1511.

Erfurt is the birthplace of one of Johann Sebastian Bach's cousins, Johann Bernhard Bach, as well as Johann Sebastian Bach's father Johann Ambrosius Bach. Bach's parents were married in 1668 in a small church, the Kaufmannskirche , that still exists on the main square, Anger. Meister Eckhart and the economist and sociologist Max Weber was born there in 1864.

Johann Pachelbel served as organist at the Prediger church in Erfurt. Pachelbel composed approximately seventy pieces for organ while in Erfurt. After 1906 the composer Richard Wetz lived in Erfurt and became the leading person in the town's musical life. His major works were written here, including three symphonies, a Requiem and a Christmas Oratorio.

Since 2003, the modern new built opera house is home of Theater Erfurt and its Philharmonic Orchestra. The "grand stage" section has 800 seats and the "studio stage" can hold 200 spectators. In September 2005, the opera Waiting for the Barbarians by Philip Glass premiered in the opera house. The Erfurt Theater has been source of controversy recently. In 2005 a performance of Humperdinck's opera Hänsel und Gretel stirred up the local press since the performance contained suggestions of pedophilia and incest. The opera was advertised in the program with the addition "for adults only".