Bernburg - St. Nikolai

Bernburg is today a city with about 32.000 inhabitants.

The current district Waldau was already mentioned in 782 for the first time and in 806 as "Waladala" in the chronicle of Moissac, about 1500 km southwest. (the chronicle is in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris today). In 782, at the Diet of Lippspringe, what was then Saxony was divided into Frankish counties and thus became part of the Frankish Empire. The next mention of a Bernburg castle was in 1138, when it is reported that the enemies of Albrecht the Bear infected the "Berneburch".

Together with the reconstruction of the castle from the second half of the 12th century, a Slavic settlement was established in front of the castle. In the first half of the 13th century, the Nikolai settlement developed due to the targeted settlement of craftsmen and merchants.

The first record of a mill on the Saale dates back to 1219, and the first bridge over the Saale was mentioned in 1239. In 1278, Bernhard I of Anhalt-Bernburg granted the old town and the new town the town charter. In 1293, at the instigation of the abbot of the Nienburg monastery, Slavonic was banned as a court language in Anhalt-Bernburg.

St. Nikolai was founded as the parish church of the new town in Bernburg. The church was a four-bay Gothic pillar basilica and a westwork originally planned with two towers. The choir as the oldest part of 1240. On the north side is the slightly younger barrel-vaulted sacristy with gable-crowned buttresses, which was extended to the west in a second construction phase. The nave was built by about 1300, of which only the north wall and the pressed ogival northern arcade with square piers from the third quarter of the 13th century are preserved.

Luckily I met the lady with the key. She let me in and showed my around. Thank you very much!

Once a day the weights of the tower clock have to be pulled up.