2017 BAVARIAN STATE EXHIBITION

Coburg Castle: Memorialization of Luther in Original Settings

Luther was under the imperial ban when he arrived in Coburg and in mortal danger in many places – He found safe haven at Coburg Castle.
Martin Luther arrived in Coburg in a retinue of some 200 men and 300 horses on Good Friday of 1530. He had ridden with the retinue of Elector Johann the Steadfast of Saxony and had intended to accompany him to the diet in Augsburg. Yet Luther’s plan came to naught because he was under the imperial ban and in mortal danger outside electoral Saxon territory. He therefore stayed behind in the safety of Coburg Castle where he occupied two rooms, still called “Luther’s rooms” today.

Always craving news, Luther followed from afar events at the diet in Augsburg where the Protestant estates presented the “Augsburg Confession” to Emperor Charles V on June 25, 1530. 120 of Martin Luther’s letters, six of them to Philipp Melanchthon, reveal how he strove from Coburg Castle to influence the Protestants to conduct their negotiations in Augsburg as he would have.

He penned other texts at Coburg Castle. Far from his everyday obligations in Wittenberg, the reformer wrote so prolifically that not even his ailments, worries or phases of profound despondency could sidetrack him.

Visitors to “Luther’s rooms” find themselves in the original setting of Luther’s sojourn in Coburg and learn how these rooms became relics memorializing Luther in the centuries thereafter.