LEIPZIG

I was able to find these pages in English in the Wikipedia and want to publish them here for bloggers who may perhaps have an interest to get to know a bit more about the city of Leipzig.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leipzig (/ˈlaɪptsɪɡ/; German pronunciation: [ˈlaɪ̯pt͡sɪç] ( listen)) is a city in thefederal state of Saxony, Germany. It has around 510,000 inhabitants.^[2]Leipzig is situated about 150 km south of Berlin at the confluence of theWhite Elster, Pleisse, and Parthe rivers at the southerly end of the North German Plain.

Leipzig has been a trade city at least since the time of the Holy Roman Empire,^[3] sitting at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important Medieval trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centers of learning and culture in fields such as music andpublishing.^[4] After World War II, Leipzig became a major urban center within the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) but its cultural and economic importance declined,^[4] despite East Germany being the richest economy in the Soviet Bloc.^[5]

Leipzig later played a significant role in instigating the fall of communism inEastern Europe, through events which took place in and around St. Nicholas Church. Since the reunification of Germany, Leipzig has undergone significant change with the restoration of some historical buildings, the demolition of others, and the development of a modern transport infrastructure.^{[citation needed]} Nowadays Leipzig is an economic center in Germany and has an opera house and one of the most modern zoos in Europe.

Twentieth century[edit]

With the opening of a fifth production hall in 1907, the Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei became the largest cotton mill company on the continent, housing over 240,000 spindles. Daily production surpassed 5 million kilograms of yarn.^[10]

The city’s mayor from 1930 to 1937, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was a noted opponent of the Nazi regime in Germany. He resigned in 1937 when, in his absence, his Nazi deputy ordered the destruction of the city’s statue of Felix Mendelssohn. On Kristallnacht in 1938, one of the city’s most architecturally significant buildings, the 1855 Moorish Revival Leipzig synagogue was deliberately destroyed.

Several thousand forced laborers were stationed in Leipzig during World War II.

The city was also heavily damaged by Allied bombing during World War II. Unlike its neighboring city of Dresden this was largely conventional bombing, with high explosives rather than incendiaries. The resultant pattern of loss was a patchwork, rather than wholesale loss of its center, but was nevertheless very extensive.

The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Leipzig in late April 1945. The U.S. 2nd Infantry Division and U.S. 69th Infantry Division fought into the city on 18 April and completed its capture after fierce urban combat, in which fighting was often house-to-house and block-to-block, on 19 April 1945.^[11]

The U.S. turned over the city to the Red Army as it pulled back from the line of contact with Soviet forces in July 1945 to the predesignated occupation zone boundaries. Leipzig became one of the major cities of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

In the mid-20th century, the city’s trade fair assumed renewed importance as a point of contact with the Comecon Eastern Europe economic bloc, of which East Germany was a member. At this time, trade fairs were held at a site in the south of the city, near the Monument to the Battle of the Nations.

In October 1989, after prayers for peace at St. Nicholas Church, established in 1983 as part of the peace movement, theMonday demonstrations started as the most prominent mass protest against the East German regime.

Bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg war die Hauptspielstätte des städtischen Schauspiels das 1766 erbaute „Alte Theater“ auf dem heutigen Richard-Wagner-Platz am Brühl. Es wurde 1943 völlig zerstört. Opern wurden im ebenfalls 1943 zerstörten Neuen Theater an der Stelle des heutigen Opernhauses am Augustusplatz gegeben).

Centraltheater[Bearbeiten]

Das ehemalige Operettentheater Centraltheater zwischen Bosestraße und Gottschedstraße, das 1901 vonAugust Hermann Schmidt und Arthur Johlige erbaut wurde und im Krieg ebenfalls stark beschädigt worden war, war eine der ersten festen Behelfsspielstätten des Leipziger Schauspiels nach 1945.

Das Schauspiel Leipzig ist eine Schauspielbühne in Leipzig. Seit 2008 steht es unter der Intendanz von Sebastian Hartmann, zuvor war seit 1995Wolfgang Engel Intendant. Zur Spielzeit 2013/14 wird Enrico Lübbe neuer Intendant des Schauspiel Leipzig^[1]. Die Hauptspielstätte ist das Centraltheater(bis 2008: Schauspielhaus). Davon zu unterscheiden ist das 1943 zerstörte Privattheater Leipziger Schauspielhaus.

All the above I copied from Wikipedia. Sorry, for the last part I couldn’t find a translation for in English. I just wanted to find out whether the Leipziger Schauspielhaus, which was destroyed in 1943, and was never rebuilt in its original place in Sophienstrasse, whether this theater has been rebuilt somewhere else. It used to be a private theater and the Nazis didn’t like it. It had to close before the war even started. I think it was never reestablished. The theater under the name Schauspielhaus which became in 2008 the Centraltheater, has apparently no connection with what used to be the Leipziger Schauspielhaus.