The history of Saxony-Anhalt began with Old Saxony, which was conquered by Charlemagne in 804 and transformed into the Duchy of Saxony within the Carolingian Empire. Saxony went on to become one of the so-called stem duchies of the German Kingdom and subsequently the Holy Roman Empire which formed out of the eastern partition of the Carolingian Empire. The duchy grew to become a powerful state within the empire, ruling over much of what is now northern Germany, but following conflicts with the emperor it was partitioned into numerous minor states, including the Principality of Anhalt, around the end of the 12th century and early 13th century. The territories of the Duchy of Saxony, the Principality of Anhalt, and their successors are now part of the modern German state of Saxony-Anhalt.
The ducal title and electoral dignity passed to the Ascanian Bernhard of Anhalt, but the title only came with a few small eastern parts of the former territory. Following his death in 1212 his possessions were divided between his sons: Henry established Anhalt as a county while Albert I took on the ducal title and the remaining possessions.
Anhalt was raised to a principality in 1218 but was divided in 1252 between Henry's sons, forming Anhalt-Aschersleben, Anhalt-Bernburg and Anhalt-Zerbst. Over the centuries, numerous additional divisions and reunifications of the Anhalt territory took place, resulting in the creation of Anhalt-Köthen, Anhalt-Dessau, Anhalt-Pless and Anhalt-Plötzkau, as well as the recreation of several of the divisions; after 1252 it was only ruled as a single entity between 1570 and 1603.
Meanwhile, after Albert I's death in 1260, the Duchy of Saxony was co-ruled by his sons John I and Albert II, and subsequently also by John I's sons. However, the geographic separation of the territories – Wittenberg, Lauenburg and Hadeln – led to them being increasingly administered separately. In 1296 the duchy was officially separated into two separate duchies: John's sons became rulers of Saxe-Lauenburg (which also included the Hadeln exclave) while Albert II became ruler of Saxe-Wittenberg. In addition to the duchy, Albert had acquired the County of Gommern in 1295, and in 1290 his son and heir Rudolph had been enfeoffed with the lands of the former County of Brehna on Wittenberg's southern border. The status of the electoral dignity was contested by both lines until it was officially settled in Saxe-Wittenberg's favour by the Golden Bull of 1356, after which time it became known as the Electorate of Saxony. In 1423 the Electorate was inherited by the Wettin Frederick I, who was also the Margrave of Meissen and Landgrave of Thuringia. Since Prince-elector was a higher rank than either landgrave or margrave, the whole of Frederick's territory became known as the Electorate of Saxony; the lands around Wittenberg, Brehna and Gommern became known as the or "Electoral Circle".
After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the remaining Anhalt divisions – Bernburg, Dessau and Köthen – were elevated to duchies by Napoleon while the Electorate of Saxony became a Kingdom; all were part of Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine until 1813.
In 1813 the Kingdom of Prussia occupied large amounts of Saxony's territory in the Battle of Leipzig, including the Electoral Circle (which had been renamed the "Wittenberg Circle" in 1807); in May 1815 a treaty was signed in which Saxony ceded this territory to Prussia. In June 1815 they all became part of the German Confederation. In 1816 Prussia reorganised its annexed territory, merging it with the former Duchy of Magdeburg, Principality of Halberstadt, Principality of Erfurt, the Eichsfeld, and the former Imperial Cities of Mühlhausen and Nordhausen, along with the Altmark and other parts of Brandenburg west of the Elbe, into the Province of Saxony.
In 1863 the Anhalt duchies were finally reunited to form the Duchy of Anhalt. The duchy became part of the Prussian-led North German Confederation in 1867 and finally the German Empire in 1871.
Following Germany's defeat in World War I, Anhalt became the Free State of Anhalt while the Province of Saxony continued as a constituent of the Free State of Prussia (both within the Weimar Republic). During Nazi rule, all of the previous subdivisions, including Anhalt and the Province of Saxony, ceased to exist de facto as they were replaced with in 1934.
After World War II what had been Anhalt and the Province of Saxony formed the basis of the occupying Soviet administration's state () of Saxony-Anhalt. Along with the other states of East Germany, Saxony-Anhalt was dissolved in 1952 and replaced with various districts (); Saxony-Anhalt roughly corresponds to the former Magdeburg and Halle districts. However, the states, including Saxony-Anhalt, came back into being following German reunification in 1990, albeit with different borders than the original East German states.
Duchy of Saxony
After Charlemagne's conquest of the Saxons (772–804), their land was incorporated into the Carolingian empire, and late in the 9th century, it became the first Duchy of Saxony. It occupied nearly all the territory between the Elbe and Saale rivers to the east and the Rhine to the west; it bordered on Franconia and Thuringia in the south. It was itself divided into four provinces: Westphalia, Angria, Eastphalia, and Nordalbingia, with modern Saxony-Anhalt mostly lying within Eastphalia. Duke Henry I (Henry the Fowler) of Saxony was elected German king in 919, and his son, Emperor Otto I, bestowed (961) Saxony on Hermann Billung (d. 973), a Saxon nobleman, whose descendants held the duchy until the extinction of the male line in 1106. Lothair of Supplinburg bestowed it on his Guelphic son-in-law, Henry the Proud, who was already Duke of Bavaria.
In 1142 the duchy passed to Henry the Lion, son of Henry the Proud. The struggle between Henry the Lion and Emperor Frederick I ended with Henry's loss of all his fiefs in 1180. The stem duchy was broken up into numerous fiefs. The Guelphic heirs of Henry the Lion retained only their allodial lands, the Duchy of Brunswick. The ducal title of Saxony went to Bernhard of Anhalt, a younger son of Albert the Bear of Brandenburg and founder of the Ascanian line of Saxon dukes. Besides Anhalt, Bernard received Lauenburg and the country around Wittenberg on the Elbe. These widely separate territories continued after 1260 under separate branches of the Ascanians as Saxe-Lauenburg and Saxe-Wittenberg.
Electorate and Kingdom of Saxony The Golden Bull of 1356 raised the Duke of Saxe-Wittenberg to the permanent rank of elector, with the right to participate in the election of the Holy Roman Emperor. Electoral Saxony, as his territory was called, was a relatively small area along the middle Elbe. Extending to the south of Electoral Saxony was the Margraviate of Meissen, ruled by the increasingly powerful house of Wettin. The margraves of Meissen acquired (13th–14th century) the larger parts of Thuringia, Lower Lusatia and the intervening territories, and in 1423 Margrave Frederick the Warlike added Electoral Saxony; in 1425 he became Elector Frederick I. Thus, Saxony shifted to east-central and east Germany from northwest Germany.
In 1485 the Wettin lands were partitioned between two sons of Elector Frederick II; the division came to be permanent. Ernest, founder of the Ernestine branch of Wettin, received Electoral Saxony with Wittenberg and most of the Thuringian lands. Albert, founder of the Albertine branch, received a ducal rank and the Meissen territories, including Dresden and Leipzig. Duke Maurice of Saxony, a grandson of Albert and a Protestant, received the electoral title in the 16th century; it remained in the Albertine branch until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.
The rivalry between Saxony and Brandenburg (after 1701 the kingdom of Prussia) was a decisive factor in later Saxon history, as was the election in 1697 of Augustus II (who was Frederick Augustus I as Elector of Saxony) as King of Poland; the election led to an economic partnership between the declining Poland and Saxony, whose prestige was thereby diminished. In the War of the Austrian Succession, Saxony adhered to what had become its traditional wavering policy, changing sides in the middle of the conflict. The death in 1763 of Augustus III ended the union with Poland.
The period of Saxon rule in Poland marked a time of economic and social decay but also of cultural and artistic flowering. Augustus II and Augustus III were lavish patrons of art and learning and greatly beautified their capital, Dresden. The universities of Wittenberg and Leipzig had long been leading intellectual centers, and 18th-century Leipzig led in the rise of German literature as well as in music, which reached its first peak with Bach.
Saxony sided with Prussia against France early in the French Revolutionary Wars but changed sides in 1806. For this act its elector was raised to royal rank, becoming King Frederick Augustus I. His failure to change sides again before Napoleon's fall cost him (1815) nearly half his kingdom at the Congress of Vienna. The Kingdom of Saxony lost Lower Lusatia, part of Upper Lusatia, and all its northern territory including Wittenberg and Merseburg to Prussia. Its principal remaining cities were Dresden, Leipzig, Chemnitz, and Plauen. The larger part of the territories ceded in 1815 was incorporated with several other Prussian districts into the Prussian province of Saxony, with Magdeburg as its capital. This was united after 1945 with Anhalt to form the state of Saxony-Anhalt and became part of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in 1949. From 1952 to 1990 Saxony-Anhalt was divided into the East German districts of Halle and Magdeburg. In 1990, prior to German reunification, the districts were reintegrated as a state.
Counts of Anhalt During the 9th century, the greater part of Anhalt was included in the Duchy of Saxony. In the 12th century, it came under the rule of Albert the Bear, Margrave of Brandenburg. Albert was descended from Adalbert, Count of Ballenstedt, whose son Esico (d. 1059 or 1060) appears to have been the first to bear the title of Count of Anhalt. Esico's grandson, Otto the Rich, Count of Ballenstedt, was the father of Albert the Bear, who united Anhalt with Brandenburg. When Albert died in 1170, his son Bernard I, who received the title of Duke of Saxony in 1180, became the first Count of Anhalt. Bernard I died in 1212, and Anhalt, separated from Saxony, passed to his son Henry, who in 1218 took the title of prince and was the real founder of the house of Anhalt. Henry is included among the Minnesingers in the Codex Manesse.
Princes of Anhalt
On Henry's death in 1252 his three sons partitioned the principality, founding the lines of Aschersleben, Bernburg and Zerbst. The family ruling in Aschersleben became extinct in 1315, and this district was subsequently incorporated into the neighbouring Bishopric of Halberstadt, thus dividing the territory of Anhalt-Bernburg into two separate pieces. The last prince of the original line of Anhalt-Bernburg died in 1468 and his lands were inherited by the princes of the sole remaining line, that of Anhalt-Zerbst. The territory belonging to this branch of the family had been divided in 1396, and after the acquisition of Bernburg, Prince George I made a further partition of Zerbst (Zerbst and Dessau). Early in the 16th century, owing to the death or abdication of several princes, the family had narrowed down to the two branches of Anhalt-Köthen and Anhalt-Dessau (both issued from Anhalt-Dessau in 1471).