Bernburg

Bernburg, on the Saale river, is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, and the capital of the Salzlandkreis district. The town centre sits in a fertile lowland about 40 kilometres downstream from Halle and 45 kilometres upstream from Magdeburg, and the municipal area also includes eight localities incorporated on 1 January 2010. Bernburg Castle, the former residence of the Anhalt-Bernburg princes, dominates the town and holds a museum and a bear pit in its moat, and the town is a stop on the Romanesque Road. The area was settled in Neolithic times and gave its name to the Walternienburg-Bernburg Culture. Bernburg itself was first mentioned as civitas Brandanburg in a deed of King Otto I in 961, and in 1252 the rebuilt castle became the seat of Prince Bernhard I of Anhalt-Bernburg. During the Second World War a wing of the town mental hospital was used for the mass murder of an estimated 15,000 people, and the site is now a memorial.