Torgau () is a town on the banks of the

Elbe The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Re ...

in northwestern

Saxony Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...

, Germany. It is the capital of the district

Nordsachsen Nordsachsen ("North Saxony") is a district ('' Kreis'') in Saxony, Germany. History The district was established by merging the former districts of Delitzsch and Torgau-Oschatz as part of the district reform of August 2008. On 10 December 200 ...

. Outside Germany, the town is best known as where on 25 April 1945, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

Armies forces first met near the end of the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

History

The settlement goes back to a Slavonic settlement named Turguo in the shire of Neletici. There was presumably a wooden Slavonic castle located on the site of the present-day Hartenfels castle. In the 10th century it fell under the rule of the

Holy Roman Emperors The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperat ...

, and a stone castle was built, around which the settlement congregated. A market is attested in 1119. The town was located on the important trade-road, the via regia Lusatiae inferioris, between

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

and

Frankfurt an der Oder Frankfurt (Oder), also known as Frankfurt an der Oder (), is a city in the German state of Brandenburg. It has around 57,000 inhabitants, is one of the easternmost cities in Germany, the fourth-largest city in Brandenburg, and the largest German ...

that crossed the river Elbe at a ford east of Torgau. Torgau belonged to the duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg, which in 1356 was raised to be the Electorate of Saxony. After the last Ascanian duke died without issue in 1423, the Electorate passed to the Wettin dynasty, which took up its residence at Torgau. Following the

Treaty of Leipzig The Treaty of Leipzig or Partition of Leipzig (German ''Leipziger Teilung'') was signed on 11 November 1485 between Elector Ernest of Saxony and his younger brother Albert III, the sons of Elector Frederick II of Saxony from the House of Wettin ...

partition of the Wettin inheritance on 26 August 1485, Torgau fell to the Ernestine line. Frederick III, Elector of Saxony and his successors had Hartenfels Castle at Torgau built by architect Conrad Pflüger and his successor Konrad Krebs. The Ernestine court resided mainly in Torgau and in

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

. From 1525 onwards, Torgau became the sole residence. Hartenfels Castle is the largest completely preserved castle of the early Renaissance in Germany. After the

Battle of Mühlberg The Battle of Mühlberg took place near Mühlberg in the Electorate of Saxony in 1547, during the Schmalkaldic War. The Catholic princes of the Holy Roman Empire led by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V decisively defeated the Lutheran Schmalk ...

in 1547, Torgau fell to the Albertine line. During the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

, the town council closed all cloisters in 1523. Citizens of Torgau destroyed the paintings and statues of saints in the churches and stormed the

Franciscan , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ( hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whi ...

. After Luther had driven Andreas Karlstadt (Bodenstein) from Saxony in 1524, he enforced the expulsion of Karlstadt's followers in Torgau in 1529.

Katharina von Bora Katharina von Bora (; 29 January 1499 – 20 December 1552), after her wedding Katharina Luther, also referred to as "die Lutherin" ("the Lutheress"), was the wife of Martin Luther, German reformer and a seminal figure of the Protestant Reform ...

, the wife of

Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...

, died in Torgau and is buried there in St Marien, Torgau. The court chapel, constructed in 1543-44 by Nikolaus Gromann, was consecrated by

on 5 October 1544; it is thus the second oldest newly built protestant church in the world, after the court chapel of Neuburg Castle which was consecrated in 1543. The Torgauer Artikel, a draft of the Augsburg Confession was composed by Luther, Melanchthon, Bugenhagen and Jonas in the electoral superindenture in 1530 (Wintergrün). The Lutheran

Formula of Concord Formula of Concord (1577) (German, ''Konkordienformel''; Latin, ''Formula concordiae''; also the "''Bergic Book''" or the "''Bergen Book''") is an authoritative Lutheran statement of faith (called a confession, creed, or "symbol") that, in its tw ...

was written in Torgau in 1576. The first German opera,

Heinrich Schütz Heinrich Schütz (; 6 November 1672) was a German early Baroque composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as one of the most important composers of the 17th century. He ...

's ''Dafne'', was presented at the court in Torgau, 1627. In the

Battle of Torgau In the Battle of Torgau on 3 November 1760, King Frederick the Great's Prussian army fought an Austrian army under the command of Field Marshal Leopold Josef Graf Daun. The Prussians won a costly victory in one of the bloodiest battles of the Thir ...

, on 3 November 1760, a Prussian army under the command of King Friedrich the Great defeated a larger Austrian army under the command of Field Marshal

Leopold Josef Graf Daun Count Leopold Joseph von Daun (german: Leopold Joseph Maria, Reichsgraf von und zu Daun; 24 September 17055 February 1766), later Prince of Thiano, was an Austrian field marshal of the Imperial Army in the War of the Austrian Succession and S ...

, a major battle of the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (175 ...

. After the

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon B ...

, it was passed to

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

in 1815.

World War II

The town is where during the World War II,

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

forces coming from the west met forces of the

Soviet Army uk, Радянська армія , image = File:Communist star with golden border and red rims.svg , alt = , caption = Emblem of the Soviet Army , start_date ...

coming from the east during the invasion of Germany on 25 April 1945, which is now remembered as "

Elbe Day Elbe Day, April 25, 1945, is the day Soviet and American troops met at the Elbe River, near Torgau in Germany, marking an important step toward the end of World War II in Europe. This contact between the Soviets, advancing from the east, and th ...

". Units of the U.S. First Army and the Soviet First Ukrainian Front met on the bridge at Torgau, and at Lorenzkirch (near Strehla), 20 miles to the south. The unit commanders met the following day at Torgau for an official handshake. This marked the beginning of the line of contact between Soviet and American forces but not the finalized occupation zones. In fact, the area surrounding Torgau initially occupied by U.S. forces was in July 1945 given over to Soviet forces in compliance with the

Yalta Agreement The Yalta Conference (codenamed Argonaut), also known as the Crimea Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the post ...

. After the war, in 1949, the film '' Encounter at the Elbe'' was released by

Mosfilm Mosfilm (russian: Мосфильм, ''Mosfil’m'' ) is a film studio which is among the largest and oldest in the Russian Federation and in Europe. Founded in 1924 in the USSR as a production unit of that nation's film monopoly, its output inclu ...

about the meeting of both armies. Torgau was one of the prisons in which

Reinhold Eggers Reinhold Eggers (1890–1974) was the security officer at Oflag IV-C from November 1940 to April 1945, promoted to chief of security in 1944. The Nova television programme ''Nazi Prison Escape'', a shortened cut of a British documentary series, was ...

spent his postwar imprisonment after he had been sentenced by the Soviets. He had been the security officer at

Oflag IV-C Oflag IV-C, often referred to by its location at Colditz Castle, overlooking Colditz, Saxony, was one of the most noted German Army prisoner-of-war camps for captured enemy officers during World War II; ''Oflag'' is a shortening of ''Offiziersl ...

during the war in Colditz Castle.

Post–World War II

After the war, the Soviet secret police agency

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

established its Special Camps Nos. 8 and 10 in Fort Zinna and in the nearby Seydlitz barracks. Germans and some Soviet citizens were interned here or served sentences passed by the Soviet military tribunals. The East German People's Police used the Fort Zinna prison from 1950 to 1990 as a penitentiary. In the 1950s it primarily housed political prisoners. The Torgau Documentation and Information Center (DIZ), founded in 1991 and now under the administration of the Saxon Memorial Foundation for the commemoration of the victims of political despotism, researches and presents the history of the Torgau prisons in the permanent exhibition "Traces of Injustice". After World War II, Torgau was initially the district centre of the state of Saxony Anhalt in

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

. After the dissolution of the states of East Germany in 1952, it became part of

Bezirk Leipzig The Bezirk Leipzig was a district (''Bezirk'') of East Germany. The administrative seat and the main town was Leipzig. History The district was established, with the other 13, on 25 July 1952, substituting the old German states. After 3 October ...

. In 1990, after the

Unification of Germany The unification of Germany (, ) was the process of building the modern German nation state with federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany (one without multinational Austria), which commenced on 18 August 1866 with adoption of t ...

, it became part of the

region of the state of

. In 2008 it became the centre of the

district.

Geography

The town Torgau consists of Torgau proper and the following ''Ortschaften'' or municipal divisions:Hauptsatzung der Stadt Torgau
February 2019. *Beckwitz * Graditz *Loßwig *Mehderitzsch *Melpitz *Staupitz *Weßnig *

Zinna Zinna is a village and a former municipality in the district Nordsachsen, in Saxony, Germany. Since 1 January 2013, it is part of the town Torgau. See also * Treaty of Zinna * Zinna Abbey Zinna Abbey (german: Kloster Zinna) is a former Ci ...

Beckwitz, Loßwig, Mehderitzsch, Staupitz and Weßnig were part of the former municipality Pflückuff, that was absorbed into Torgau on 1 January 2009.

Population development

: Data source from 1999: Statistical office Saxony ¹ including barracks
² Incorporation Pflückuff

Sights

Sights include the historic town centre, restored since German reunification, a brewery museum, the monument for the meeting of the Russian and American troops on the

and a Russian military cemetery. The early Renaissance Hartenfels Castle dominates the town. The chapel was built in 1544 (designed by Nickel Gromann) and combines late Gothic with early

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

elements. It was consecrated by

on 5 October 1544. Brown bears are still kept in the moat.

Twin towns – sister cities

Torgau is twinned with: * Hämeenkyrö, Finland *

Sindelfingen Sindelfingen (Swabian: ''Sendlfenga'') is a city in Baden-Württemberg in south Germany. It lies near Stuttgart at the headwaters of the Schwippe (a tributary of the river Würm), and is home to a Mercedes-Benz assembly plant. History * 1155 � ...

, Germany *

Znojmo Znojmo (; german: Znaim) is a town in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 33,000 inhabitants. Znojmo is the historical and cultural centre of southwestern Moravia and the second most populated town in the South Moravian ...

, Czech Republic

Notable people

* Frederick III, Elector of Saxony (1463–1525) Elector of Saxony, protected

* Nicolaus von Amsdorf (1483–1565), Lutheran theologian and early Protestant reformer * Leonhardt Schröter (c.1532 – c.1601), Renaissance choirmaster, teacher and composer * Andreas Schato (1539–1603), physician, mathematician, astronomer and scientist *

Johann Philipp, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg Johann Philipp (25 January 1597 – 1 April 1639), was a duke of Saxe-Altenburg. He was born in Torgau, the eldest (but fourth in order of birth) surviving son of Friedrich Wilhelm I, Duke of Saxe-Weimar and Anna Maria of the Palatinate-Ne ...

(1597–1639), duke of

Saxe-Altenburg Saxe-Altenburg (german: Sachsen-Altenburg, links=no) was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine branch of the House of Wettin in present-day Thuringia. It was one of the smallest of the German states with an area of 1323 square kilomete ...

* Dorothea of Saxe-Altenburg (1601–1675), princess from the

House of Wettin The House of Wettin () is a dynasty of German kings, prince-electors, dukes, and counts that once ruled territories in the present-day German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The dynasty is one of the oldest in Europe, and its ori ...

Eduard Oscar Schmidt Eduard Oscar Schmidt (21 February 1823, in Torgau – 17 January 1886, in Kappelrodeck) was a German zoologist and phycologist. Biography He initially studied mathematics and science at Halle, then continued his education in Berlin, where he c ...

(1823–1886), zoologist and phycologist * Georg von Siemens (1839–1901), founding director of

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

* Leonhard Koeppe (1884–1969), ophthalmologist * Wolf Roth (born 1944), actor * Wolfgang Klotz (born 1951), gymnast * Olaf Marschall (born 1966), footballer * Kai Kazmirek (born 1991), decathlon athlete

Gallery

Torgau Schloß Hartenfels.jpg, Hartenfels Castle Torgau Rathaus.jpg, Town hall Torgau Grosser Teich.jpg, Lake Torgau Torgau-.JPG, Torgau from the north-west Torgau-1650-Merian.jpg, Engraving from

Matthäus Merian Matthäus is a given name or surname. Notable people with the name include: ;Surname * Lothar Matthäus, (born 1961), German former football player and manager ;Given name * Matthäus Aurogallus, Professor of Hebrew at the University of Wittenbe ...

from around 1650 Torgau Denkmal der Begegnung en-de1.jpg, A commemorative plaque now stands where the "East Meets West" moment took place in Torgau on

, 1945

References

External links

* *
Torgau
an unofficial site *http://www.torgau-bilder.de website

Multimedia

CBC Radio reports
on the Russian and American meeting at Torgau on May 1, 1945 {{Authority control Nordsachsen Populated riverside places in Germany Populated places on the Elbe