| Description : Construction of the first Gothic cathedral on German soil
began in 1209 at the instigation of Archbishop Albrecht I of Käfernburg, this was after its predecessor, the
late Romanesque building was destroyed in the city of Magdeburg fire of 1207. Archbishop Burchard III, to finance
the construction, rigorously raised the beer tax amongst other things and was slain by outraged citizens in 1325. In 1363
the nave of the unfinished cathedral was consecrated. Construction work was resumed in 1477 and completed in 1520 under
Archbishop Ernst II of Saxony. At the time of the Reformation, Magdeburg was a stronghold of Protestantism and the
cathedral became Protestant in 1567. In 1631, during the Thirty Years' War, army commander Tilly conquered Magdeburg. The
subsequent massacre, sarcastically called the Magdeburg Wedding, cost the lives of 20,000 citizens ‐ Pope Urban VIII
rejoiced at the "destruction of the heretic's nest". After severe damage from air raids on Magdeburg in January 1945 and
restoration after the war, the cathedral was reopened in 1955. The Roman‐German Emperor Otto I the Great
(912‐973) is buried in the cathedral the north‐east view of which is depicted on the coin. At the top of the motif
is "2021", at the bottom "SACHSEN‐ANHALT" and below it the country abbreviation "D" (for Deutschland / Germany). In the
middle on the left is the German mint mark (A = Staatliche Münze Berlin in Berlin,
D = Bayerisches Hauptmünzamt in Munich, F = Staatliche Münzen
Baden‐Württemberg in Stuttgart, G = Staatliche Münzen Baden‐Württemberg in
Karlsruhe oder J = Landesbetrieb Hamburgische Münze in Hamburg). On the right are the initials "mo" of
the designer Michael Otto. |
