The Martin Luther House in Eisenach, Germany

In 1498, 15 year old Martin Luther comes to Eisenach to go to school there. To earn some money he sings in the streets which wasn’t unusal in this time. But a lady sees this and takes him to her house to live there. Ursula Cotta is member of an influental family and today’s Martin Luther House belonged to this family. There are still parts of this building remaining.

In 1636, there was a serious fire in Eisenach that lead to considerable structural changes. The three buildings which stood on the premises were connected by an additional storey and a mansard roof. Around 260 years later, an innkeeper opened an inn called the “Lutherkeller” (Luther Cellar) and guided interested guests through Luther’s former living quarters. Due to the severe damage during World War II, the Martin Luther House had to be rebuilt in 1945. The Luther Memorial and the Evangelical Rectory Archive have been housed in the Martin Luther House since May 1956. On the occasion of Martin Luther’s 500th birthday in 1983, the Martin Luther House was extensively renovated. Since the 450th anniversary of his death in 1996, the new permanent exhibition can be seen in the Luther Memorial.

Martin Luther was born on 10th November 1483 in Eisleben and studied law and philosophy beginning in 1501 until he became a monk in 1505. He lived in the Wittenberg monastery and worked as a preacher at the parish church. In 1517, Luther wrote his 95 Theses as a protest of the sale of indulgences. Even today, these are regarded as the catalyst for the Reformation. In 1521, Luther was ordered to account for his theses and other reformation writings before the Reichstag (imperial assembly) in Worms and refused to retract his writings. Thereafter, he was excommunicated by papal bull and ostracized and condemned as a criminal through the Edict of Worms. He was befriended by a sovereign who hid him in the Wartburg castle where he lived under the name of “Junker Jörg” (Squire Joerg). There he translated the New Testament into German. In 1522, he returned to Wittenberg and married Katharina von Bora in 1525. Martin Luther died on 18th February 1546 in Eisleben and was buried in the castle church in Wittenberg.