Wittenberg is the mother and Torgau the midwife of the Reformation. Martin Luther’s teachings took hold easily. More than forty stays of Martin Luther in Torgau are documented.
 
On Easter Eve 1523, Torgau councilor and chief merchant Leonhard Koppe helped Katharina von Bora and eleven other nuns to escape from the Abbey of Nimbschen. Torgau was not only the beginning of Katharina’s non-clerical life, her life ended here as well. Fleeing the Black Death, her cart had an accident on the way from Wittenberg to Torgau. She died on December 20, 1552 and was buried at Torgau’s Marienkirche. The only memorial dedicated to the famous reformer’s wife can be found at her last residence in Katharinenstraße 11.
 
The first Protestant hymnbook was created by Torgau cantor Johann Walter in close cooperation with Luther and was published in 1524. The tradition of Protestant church music is still maintained by staging formidable concerts in Torgau. In 1530 in the building of the superintendancy, Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, Justus Jonas und Johannes Bugenhagen developed the Torgau Articles as the foundation of the Augsburg Confession.
On October 5, 1544, Martin Luther consecrated the Torgau castle church to be the first Protestant church building. Its architecture still shows the main features of the Protestant teachings.

Katharina Luther Parlor
In 1552 this lovely Renaissance house became the sickbed and last residence of Katharina Luther after she had to flee the Black Death. Close to the town gates of Torgau, she had an accident from which she did not recover. Eventually, her life ended in the town where, after escaping from the life as a nun in the Abbey of Nimbschen, her life as a non-clerical had begun. With Martin Luther by her side, she became a confident woman who successfully administered and managed the vast holding of the Black Cloister of Wittenberg. By means of contemporary graphics and items of her everyday life, the exhibition addresses the biography of this exceptional woman whose life was closely linked to her husband’s reformatory work.