Moritzbastei

Moritzbastei preserves the last surviving section of Leipzig’s old fortifications, built between 1551 and 1554. Renaissance walls and vaulted rooms show how the bastion once protected the city. Hieronymus Lotter oversaw construction after Elector Moritz of Saxony ordered Leipzig’s defences rebuilt.

Military importance faded during the eighteenth century, and the rooms later stored trade goods and housed craftsmen. From 1796 to 1834, Leipzig’s first public school stood above the bastion’s basement. Architect Johann Carl Friedrich Dauthe designed a school that separated classes by neither religious confession nor tradition. Rubble from the school’s destruction in 1943 eventually filled the underground rooms.

Students rediscovered the buried structure in the early 1970s and rebuilt it as a university club. Angela Merkel joined that reconstruction before becoming Chancellor of Germany. Today, historic vaults hold club nights, live music, poetry slams, film screenings, a café, a pub and a summer terrace. Student and academic culture still shape this cultural centre beside Leipzig University.