Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale (literally Halle on the Saale river, and in some historic references simply Saale after the river. The current official name of the city is Halle (Saale). Halle (Saale) is situated in the southern part of Saxony-Anhalt, along the river Saale which drains the surrounding plains and the greater part of the neighboring Free State of Thuringia located just to its south, and the Thuringian basin, northwards from the Thuringian Forest. Leipzig, one of the other major cities of eastern Germany, is only 40 km away.
Salt, also known as White Gold, was extracted from four “Borns” (well-like structures). The four Borns/brine named Gutjahrbrunnen, Meteritzbrunnen, Deutscher Born and Hackeborn, were located around the Hallmarket (or “Under Market”), now a market square with a fountain, just across from the TV station, MDR. The brine was highly concentrated and boiled in Koten, simple structured houses made from reed and clay. Salters, who wore a unique uniform with eighteen silver buttons, were known as Halloren, and this name was later used for the chocolates in the shape of these buttons.
The Halloren-Werke, the oldest chocolate factory in Germany, was founded in 1804. Old documents are on display and a chocolate room can be visited at Delitzscher Street 70. The original “Halloren-Kugeln” are sold in a box of eighteen little pralines. Within East Germany, Halle’s chemical industry, now mainly shut down, was of great importance. The two main companies were Buna and Leuna, and Halle-Neustadt (Halle Newtown) was built in the 1960s to accommodate the employees of these two factories.
The University of Halle was founded here in 1694. It is now combined with the University of Wittenberg and is called the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg. The medical school there was founded by Friedrich Hoffmann. The university’s botanical garden, the Botanische Garten der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, dates to 1698. The famous Baroque composer George Friderich Handel was born in Halle in 1685, where he spent the first 17 years of his life. The house where he lived is now a museum and houses an exhibition about his life. To celebrate the composer, Halle has staged a Handel Festival since 1922, annually in June since 1952. The German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina is the oldest and one of the most respected scientific societies in Germany. Halle accommodates Germany’s oldest Evangelic Bible college, known as Marien Bibliothek, with 27,000 titles.
In the past Halle was a centre of German Pietism and played an important role in establishing the Lutheran church in North America, when Henry Muhlenberg and others were sent as missionaries to Pennsylvania in the mid 18th century. Muhlenberg is now called the first Patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America. He and his son, Frederick Muhlenberg, who was the first Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, were graduates of Halle University. The Silver Treasure of the Halloren is displayed occasionally at the Technical Museum Saline. It is a unique collection of silver and gold goblets dating back to 1266. The ancient craft of “Schausieden” (boiling of the brine) can be observed there too. The Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte houses the Nebra sky disk, a significant (though unproven) Bronze-age find with astrological significance.
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