The story of this place
After Martin Luther was declared an outlaw at the Diet of Worms in 1521, his protector Frederick the Wise staged a fake kidnapping and hid him in the Wartburg above Eisenach. Disguised as a bearded knight, 'Junker Jörg', Luther spent ten months here and, in a burst of about eleven weeks, translated the New Testament from Greek into German — a work that shaped the modern German language itself. Legend says he flung his inkpot at an apparition of the Devil, and guides long showed a stain on the wall. The castle, founded around 1067, had already hosted the medieval minstrels' contest and Saint Elisabeth of Hungary. It became a symbol of German unity and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.