City Facts about Leipzig

Leipzig is, with a population of 515,459, the largest city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany and in the new states of Germany. The city was also heavily damaged by Allied bombing during World War II. American troops of the 69th Infantry Division captured the city on 20 April 1945. The U.S. turned over the city to the Red Army as it pulled back from the line of contact with Soviet forces in July 1945 to the pre-designated occupation zone boundaries. Leipzig became one of the major cities of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). In the mid-20th century, the city's Trade Fair assumed renewed importance as a point of contact with the Comecon Eastern Europe economic bloc, of which East Germany was a member. In October 1989, after prayers for peace at St. Nicholas Church, established in 1983 as part of the peace movement, the Monday demonstrations started as the most prominent mass protest against the East German regime. Leipzig was the German candidate for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but did not make it to the short list.
Leipzig and the music: Johann Sebastian Bach worked in Leipzig from 1723 to 1750, at the St. Thomas Lutheran church, and Richard Wagner the composer was born in Leipzig in 1813, in the Brühl. Robert Schumann was also active in Leipzig music, having been invited by Felix Mendelssohn when the latter established Germany's first musical conservatoire in the city in 1843. Gustav Mahler was second conductor (working under Artur Nikisch) at the Leipzig Theater from June 1886 until May 1888, and achieved his first great recognition while there by completing and publishing Carl Maria von Weber's opera "Die Drei Pintos", and Mahler also completed his own 1st Symphony while living there.