A quiet German town welcomes some 2 million visitors for Martin Luther’s 500th – Washington Post

By Eliot Stein By Eliot Stein June 22

Its 8 a.m. in rural east Germany and Gunter, a hulking tree trunk of a man, is swinging a hammer over his head, pounding together the steel frame of a 90-foot-tall lookout tower resembling a bible.

This is a big year for us! he exclaims over a chorus of jackhammers. The world is coming, and we want to build something special so people remember who we are.

Welcome to Wittenberg, a tiny town with a big heart and an even bigger bible. You might have heard about this place in history class, and if youre anywhere in Germany this year, you probably will hear its name again.

It was here that, on Oct. 31, 1517, an obscure monk walked down the street from his cloister, may have nailed a piece of parchment to the door of a church and sparked a religious revolution. The rebel was Martin Luther, and his 95 theses railing against church corruption not only ripped Christianity in two but propelled Europe from Middle Age darkness to Renaissance humanism, inspired the Enlightenment and arguably gave birth to the modern Western world.

This year marks the 500th anniversary of Luthers public plea that triggered the Protestant Reformation. From May to November, millions of visitors are expected to attend more than 2,000 events throughout Germany honoring Luthers legacy as part of Reformation Summer. But the center of the global jubilee is here in Wittenberg, a charming two-street town on the Elbe River that is best measured in steps exactly 1,517 of them, if you believe the welcome sign at the train station.

By official estimates, upward of 2 million tourists will descend on Wittenberg this year and that could pose a problem. But for the past 10 years (dubbed the Luther Decade in Germany), the 2,135 residents who live inside Wittenbergs historical heart have been busy transforming this sleepy hamlet halfway between Berlin and Leipzig into something of a spiritual and cultural Rome for the worlds 814 million Protestants and nearly 80 million Lutherans. This years jubilee is easily the biggest thing to happen here in the last 499 years, and the towns determined to nail it.

I like to think that we are the biggest small town in the world, says Wittenbergs mayor, Jochen Kirchner. We have been preparing for this moment for so long, and now its our time to shine.

My interest in Wittenberg is more structural than spiritual: How does a place with only 2,000 hotel beds in the surrounding area prepare to host so many visitors? So, in anticipation of Reformation Summer, I boarded a train in April and traveled 80 minutes south from my home in Berlin to spend a few days and find out.

I quickly realized that Wittenberg is Luther literally. The town officially changed its name to Lutherstadt Wittenberg (Luthers Town) in 1938, and today it exists as a sort of open-air shrine to the jowly reformer who lived and preached here for most of his life. After passing by the towering Luther bible at the train station, walking down Luther Street and dropping my bag at the Luther-Hotel, I set out to retrace Luthers famous march from his Augustinian monastery (now the Lutherhaus museum) to the Castle Church.

Religion aside, Wittenbergs picture-perfect backdrop and upbeat, Renaissance spirit is enough to enchant those without the slightest interest in the Reformer . Cheery guides in 16th-century shawls and medieval hoods lead tours through the towns pastel-colored mansions and steep-gabled towers. Bikes bounce along the cobblestones of the pedestrian-only Collegianstrasse, past four Luther-related UNESCO World Heritage sites. And flowers bursting out of boxes hang over two trickling canals that were recently uncovered to evoke the atmosphere of Luthers era. Remarkably, the whole place was largely spared from damage in World War II, allegedly because of ties to Lutheranism by many Allies.

Even at 9 a.m., the outside of the Castle Church is buzzing with tourists. As the sea of pilgrims parts, I notice that the wooden door where Luther allegedly hammered home his 95 theses has been replaced by two mammoth bronze doors with his talking points inscribed in Latin. A choir group from South Korea soon breaks into Luthers famous hymn A Mighty Fortress is Our God, and is quickly drowned out by the drilling noises shaking the foundation of the church itself.

Youve come right in the heart of the tsunami, Wittenbergs head of tourism, Kristin Ruske, tells me across the street in the towns tourist information center. No one has ever hosted a 500-year jubilee before, so were learning as we go.

In the last few years, the state of Saxony-Anhalt, the German federal government, and the European Union have poured more than 70 million euros (about $78 million) into Wittenberg to help the town brace for this years flood of visitors.

As a result, most of Wittenbergs major Reformation sites have undergone renovations or are scrambling to finish them.

Officials recently parked on the Elbe river a floating hotel ship that can sleep 300 guests, and new exhibits and attractions are popping up everywhere including an immensely popular 360-degree Luther panorama; seven open-air Gates of Freedom installations; and an exhibition that Wittenbergers enthusiastically call Luther! 95 People 95 Treasures. The town is even transforming its old prison into Luther and the Avant-garde, a contemporary art exhibition with paintings hanging in the former cells.

Our tourism office has also tripled its size and started printing pamphlets in eight languages, Ruske says. I remember when it was just German.

Since 2014, a massive globe has been cemented to the towns Market Square with a clock showing a three-year countdown until the start of this years Reformation Summer kickoff, which came on May 20.

And since last November, 15 volunteers from Wittenberg have been working aboard an 18-wheeled Luther Storymobile truck that is rolling through 67 European towns and cities in 19 countries to educate people about the causes and lasting effects of the Reformation.

Theyre far from alone. In fact, during my two-day stay here, it seemed like every Wittenberger I met was doing something endearing to make their tiny town a more welcoming place.

Theres Uwe Bechmann, a tour guide who recently strapped a camping stove to the back of his rickshaw and now sells sizzling Lutherwursts. (If you like Luther and you like bratwurst, youll like Lutherwursts!)

Theres Andreas Metschke, who runs one of the last historical printing-press shops in east Germany and has taught himself to greet guests in 17 languages. (Next up: Swahili!)

And then theres Heidrun Rssing, a 69-year-old historian who put an ad in the local paper in March and now leads 14 eager participants in a course called To Be a Fit Host. Each week at the towns evening school, Rssing educates fellow Wittenbergers about the dates and events that set the Reformation in motion, as well as potential questions that visitors coming from different countries might have. I thought Wittenbergers should be prepared to welcome the world, not just with their hearts, but with their historical knowledge, he said.

Back at my hotel, I burrowed into an English-language guide that Rssing gave me (and wrote). As it turns out, Luther was a pretty interesting guy.

Among other things, after surviving a lightning-bolt blast, he promised a saint that he would quit law school and become a monk; he was fake-kidnapped by his pals and hid out in a castle; he grew a beard and pretended to be a knight named Junker Jrg; he translated the New Testament into German in 10 months; he smuggled a nun out of a convent by hiding her in a herring barrel and later married her; he housed orphans and refugees in his home in Wittenberg; his writings spiked European literacy rates and standardized the German language; and his 95 theses can be viewed as the worlds first viral message.

Luther was also a vicious anti-Semite. He blamed evil stares from Jews for the illness that killed him; penned a 65,000-word treatise titled, On The Jews and Their Lies; and his anti-Jewish rhetoric is widely believed to have significantly contributed to the development of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany.

The next morning, I noticed that you can find Rssings Luther guide in many of the mom-and-pop souvenir shops lining Wittenbergs two main streets. And if youre in the market for Luther socks, liquor, mugs, noodles, beer steins, keychains, jigsaw puzzles, Playmobil figurines, candles, chocolates, or T-shirts, you can find those, too.

I think that, in the past, Wittenbergers lived with the Reformation, but now some live off of the Reformation, said Johannes Block, head pastor at the Town Church of St. Mary, where Luther delivered more than 2,000 sermons. Its a great contradiction, but today only 12 percent of Wittenbergers are Protestant.

Ironically, the area around the Protestant mecca has recently made headlines as the most godless place on the planet. According to a 2012 study by social scientists from the University of Chicago, east Germany is home to the highest percentage of atheists in the world, with just 8 percent of its population claiming to believe in God. Churches here are being sold off at such a blistering pace and so many devotees are dying off each year that Christianity is actually expected to become a minority religion in Germany in the next 20 years. Yet, like so many people here, Block remains optimistic.

I have great hope that this years jubilee will encourage people to get back in touch with the church, he says. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Wittenberg, and just like the Reformation, we hope to feel the effects for years to come.

Eliot Stein is a writer based in Berlin. His website is eliotstein.me.