Weissenfels

Weissenfels, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Saxony, situated on the Saale 20 m. S.W. of Leipzig and 19 m. S. of Halle by the main line to Bebra and Frankfort-on-Main. Pop. (1905) 30,894. It contains three churches, a spacious market-place and various educational and benevolent institutions. The former palace, called the Augustusburg, built in 1664-1690, lies on an eminence near the town; this spacious edifice is now used as a military school. Weissenfels manufactures machinery, ironware, paper and other goods, and has an electrical power-house. In the neighbourhood are large deposits of sandstone and lignite. Weissenfels is a place of considerable antiquity, and from 1656 till 1746 it was the capital of the small duchy of Saxe-Weissenfels, a branch of the electoral house of Saxony, founded by Augustus, second son of the elector John George I. The body of Gustavus Adolphus was embalmed at Weissenfels after the battle of Lutzen.

See Sturm, Chronik der Stadt Weissenfels (Weissenfels, 1846); and Gerhardt, Geschichte der Stadt Weissenfels (Weissenfels, 1907).