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- October 12° · 10 rainy days
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- 13 km Leipzig · 100 km Dresden
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Leipzig wants two days: one for the autumn of 1989 and Bach, one for the Battle of the Nations monument and the Spinnerei. The demonstrations that brought down the East German regime set out from the Nikolaikirche on Monday evenings, and on 16 October 1989 there were 120,000 people on the streets.
Peace prayers have been held at the Nikolaikirche on Mondays since September 1982, and on 4 September 1989 some 1,200 people walked out of one into the first demonstration. The decisive evening was 9 October: police and army units waited in the centre under orders to use force only if attacked, and they did not move in. The other side of the story is a few streets away on the Dittrichring, in the building of the district Stasi, where the offices have been kept as they were.
Bach has only lain in the Thomaskirche since 1950. He was buried in 1750 in the churchyard of St John's; when that church was wrecked in the bombing of 1943, his remains were moved to the church where he had been cantor. The Thomanerchor, founded in 1212, still sings there.
The Völkerschlachtdenkmal marks the Battle of Leipzig of 16–19 October 1813, after which Napoleon withdrew from Germany. It opened on the centenary, 18 October 1913, and stands 91 metres tall. In the crypt sixteen stone guardians stand beside death masks, the dome holds 324 horsemen, and 364 steps lead to the terrace at the top.
What to see in Leipzig
The Nikolaikirche
The peace prayer is still held on Mondays at 5 pm, except during the summer school holidays. The church is open to visitors on weekdays from 11 am to 6 pm.
The Runde Ecke
The Stasi museum in its original rooms on the Dittrichring. Open daily 10 am to 6 pm, and the €5 ticket includes an audio guide.
The Thomaskirche
The Thomanerchor sings motets on Fridays at 6 pm and Saturdays at 3 pm. The €3 printed programme is your ticket, sold at the doors from 45 minutes before; the 9.30 Sunday service needs none.
The Völkerschlachtdenkmal
Trams 2 and 15 and the S-Bahn to the station of the same name go there. A ticket is €12; it is open until 6 pm from April to October and until 4 pm in winter.
The Spinnerei
In the early twentieth century the largest cotton mill in continental Europe, now more than a hundred studios plus galleries. The galleries open Tuesday to Saturday, 11 am to 6 pm.
- K
Karl-Liebknecht-Straße
Known as the Karli, in Südvorstadt: from Südplatz to Kurt-Eisner-Straße, restaurants and cafés with pavement tables. Trams 10 and 11 run along it.
Two things you probably did not know
The peaceful demonstrations in Leipzig in autumn 1989 grew out of prayers in the Nikolaikirche to three hundred thousand people. Not a shot was fired, and it was a month before the Berlin Wall fell.
Bach was cantor of St Thomas's church in Leipzig for twenty-seven years and is buried there. He wrote a cantata a week for the Sunday service. That is how over two hundred of them came about.
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