Halle is a city of many unique features. The house where Georg Friedrich Händel was born, the Sky Disc of Nebra, Martin Luther’s death mask, the biggest surface architecture monument in Europe, an original, preserved baroque chamber of wonders, the headquarters of the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, three fortresses and the oldest university at which teaching was carried out in German – all this can be found in Halle. Reason enough for Stadtmarketing Halle (Saale) GmbH (SMG) to put together a campaign which combines and permeates Halle’s marketing activities: “nur bei uns.” (only in Halle).
The birth of the campaign “nur bei uns. In Halle an der Saale” was the International Tourism Fair 2008 (ITB) in Berlin. To accomplish this, the SMG was able to obtain the support of the seven best known cultural and scientific institutions in Halle for a joint marketing campaign. Since then, Halle’s cultural flagships, which also contribute money to the campaign, has beve combining their culture highlights under the motto: “nur bei uns.” in brochures, advertisements and in a nationwide poster series.
The Händel-Haus Foundation, the Moritzburg Foundation – Art Museum of the State of Saxony-Anhalt, the State Museum of Pre-History, the Francke Foundations in Halle, Giebichenstein Castle Halle College of Art and Design, the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg and the Theatre, Opera and Orchestra GmbH Halle, made up of the Halle Opera, the Halle State Orchestra, the New Theatre and the Thalia Theatre, all cooperated. All these successful institutions were guided by the knowledge that they were not able to promote themselves on their own to this extent and in this prominent environment.
Since the start of the campaign, a large number of unique events have been marketed as tourist packages: the international festival “Theater der Welt” (Theatres of the World), the permanent exhibition on the Sky Disc of Nebra and the archaeological exhibition on “Fundsache Luther” (Luther – Lost Property) in the State Museum of Pre-History, the Händel Festivals, the re-opening of the extension of the Moritzburg, the reconstruction of the house in the Francke Foundations where August Hermann Francke used to live, the collections of Hermann Gerlinger, Einar Schleef and Lyonel Feininger, the annual exhibition at Giebichenstein Castle or the “Lange Nächte der Wissenschaft” (Long Science Nights).
The objective of the campaign, which is oriented to cultural fans and those on short or city trips, is to build up the national image of Halle as city of Händel and main cultural centre.
The 24-page cultural brochure “nur bei uns. In Halle an der Saale”, of which 20,000 copies are printed semi-annually and which is distributed at various trade fairs such as the ITB in Berlin, the tourism trade fair “Horizont” in Karlsruhe or the “Tourismus und Caravaning Leipzig”, provides information on up-coming cultural highlights in Halle an der Saale.
The national placing of advertisements and advertorials cover “DIE ZEIT”, “ZEIT Kultursommer” and “ZEIT Reisen”, “DB mobil”, the customer magazine of Deutsche Bahn AG, inserts in culturally oriented magazines in “Focus” and “Spiegel” and advertisements in other culturally oriented magazines. Germany-wide billboard posting has been carried out in three stages to date – in November, April and May/June in Munich, Hanover, Erfurt, Leipzig, Magdeburg, Halle and Weimar.
What can you discover in “nur bei uns.”? The SMG covers the whole range of Halle’s special features, such as the Neue Residenz, the seat of Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg, Archbishop of Magdeburg and Electoral Prince of Mainz since the 15th century; the letter from Martin Luther to Albrecht on 31 October 1517 opposing the sale of indulgences – along with his 95 Theses as an attachment; Cardinal Albrecht’s departure from Halle in 1541 under pressure from the reformation movement; Luther’s three sermons in Halle’s Market Church in 1545 and 1546; the fact that his body lay in state there on 20/21 February 1546; the fact that his death mask still lies there today; the fact that Halle’s Marienbibliothek is the oldest Lutheran Church library in Germany; and the fact that the carillon in the Red Tower is the second-largest in the world. All this can only be found in Halle!
What makes the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, which was founded in Halle in 1694, unique? It is not only the oldest and largest education institution in Saxony-Anhalt. At the beginning and end of the 18th century, the Electoral-Brandenburg State University was Germany’s leading and most modern university for many decades and in the first decades of its existence had the highest student numbers of all universities in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
What is the reason for the fame of the Francke Foundations in Halle? The theologian and pietist August Hermann Francke (1663–1727) established a diaconate centre here. The foundation stone for a new orphanage was laid in 1698 and within 30 years, school, residence, workshop buildings, gardens and a pharmacy had been built. Thus, from Christian doctrines inspired school town grew, where up to 2,500 people lived. Through the Francke Foundations, Halle got Germany’s first childrens’ hospital, the longest half-timbered house in Europe and the world’s only baroque chamber of art and natural products. The Bible Society, founded in the Francke Foundations in 1710 by Carl Hildebrand von Canstein, is also the oldest in the world.
Halle’s Moritzburg castle was originally built as the residence of the Magdeburg archbishops, it is one of the most impressive late mediaeval castles in Central Germany. Among its many occupiers were Albrecht von Wallenstein and the imperial general Tilly.
From 1637 to 1639, the Thirty Years’ War left traces of destruction throughout the entire west and north wing and in the southwest bastion.
An international architecture competition helped to resolve this situation in 2008: The great expansion project of the Moritzburg, whose modern roofing is a response to the moving language of the existing historical gabled roof and gables, is pure world architecture, in which the imposing collections of Hermann Gerlinger, Einar Schleef and Lyonel Feininger have found a worthy home.
The city’s most famous treasure is found in the State Museum of Pre-History in Halle, namely the 3,600-year-old Sky Disc of Nebra, an important archaeological find of the 20th century. The Sky Disc is the world’s oldest tangible description of astronomical phenomena and gives an idea of what our forefathers knew about the course of the world and its religious interpretation. The State Museum also has one of the oldest, most important and – with more than eleven million finds, one of the most comprehensive – archaeological collections in Germany and is one of the most significant archaeological museums in Central Europe.
Giebichenstein Castle, which dates from the 9th century, was among other things, the death and lying-in-state site of several bishops in the archbishopric of Magdeburg and served the king as a “state prison” for members of the upper aristocracy. Even Ludwig the Leaper, Landgrave of Thuringia, was arrested for murder of the Count Palatine of Saxony. Heinrich IV was a guest here in 1064, Friedrich I Barbarossa convened the Princes’ Conference at the castle in 1157 in preparation for the planned Polish campaign as part of the German eastwards expansion. Today, Giebichenstein Castle is the Halle College of Art and Design, which has developed from the tradition of a tradesmen’s and artistic school to a modern art and design college with university-level status, where over 1,000 students form over 20 countries study. Halle is also known as the birthplace of Georg Friedrich Händel (1685–1759), whose operas, oratorios and cantatas made him famous. Even today there is still much evidence of his life and work in Halle: Händel’s birthplace with the newly opened Händel Museum, the Market Church, where he was baptized, and the Händel Festivals, which the city of Halle has been organizing since 1922 in honour of its illustrious son, along with numerous concerts such as by the Händel Festival Orchestra. In the midst of the Market Square, a 3.2-metre-high bronze statue of Händel stands as a tribute to the great composer.
Without Händel, Halle today would not have the oldest secular boy’s choir in Germany or an internationally famous Children’s Choir Festival. You can find tradition in Halle anywhere you look. Combined under “nur bei uns.”, it can now let its effect unfold.
Der Autor wurde 1965 geboren und studierte Geschichte und Politikwissenschaften. Nach Stationen als Journalist beim „Holsteinischen Courier“ wechselte Voß 1999 ins PR-Fach und wurde 2004 Presse- und Marketingchef der Stadt Wolfsburg. 2006 war er als Ressortleiter Stadtmarketing der Wolfsburg Marketing GmbH tätig und übernahm 2008 die Geschäftsführung der Stadtmarketing Halle (Saale) GmbH.
