My Trip to Wolfenbüttel and Vienenburg

On Thursday I visited Wolfenbüttel and Vienenburg.

The Herzog August Library was founded by Duke Julius of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1572. It houses a large collection of manuscripts of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period and is one of the oldest libraries in the World which have never suffered loss to its collection. Its most famous librarians were Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Among its most important and famous manuscripts are the Gospels of Henry the Lion, a copy of the Sachsenspiegel, a printed edition of the Latin Psalter with annotations by Martin Luther, Luther's German translation of the New Testament and parts of the Bibliotheca Corviniana Collection. The latter three are even part of the Memory of the World Programme of the UNESCO. Today the library is a major international research centre for Medieval and Early Modern culture and some of its rooms are used as museum.

The Lessinghaus was built in 1733 as residence for court officials. In 1777 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing moved to the house and lived there until his death in 1781. There he also wrote his play Nathan the Wise. Today it is owned by the Herzog August Library and houses a museum about Lessing's life and work.

Vienenburg was an independent municipality until January 2014 when it was incorporated in Goslar. A special building of Vienenburg is its Railway Station (lower left picture). It was opened in 1840 on the Brunswick-Bad Harzburg railway of the Duchy of Brunswick State Railway, the first government-owned railway in Germany, and is thus the oldest preserved railway building in Germany. Today it is still a regional railway hub. The railway station also houses a small railway museum.