Wartburg
Castle above Eisenach where Luther was hidden from May 1521 to March 1522 after the diet of Worms, and where he translated the New Testament into German.
The Wartburg is a castle on a hill above Eisenach in Thuringia. Martin Luther’s letters from his hiding place carry cover names such as “the land of the birds” in place of a place-name. In one of them, of 12 May 1521, he wrote that he had been brought to the castle by night (Luther, Letters, to Nicholas Amsdorf, 12 May 1521), and after his return he said that he had translated the whole New Testament in his “Patmos” (Luther, Letters, to Georg Spalatin, 30 March 1522). The editors of the letters identify the place as the Wartburg. See Luther Is Excommunicated and Outlawed at Worms and Luther Translates the Bible into German.
What happened here
- 1522 to 1534, firm dateLuther Translates the Bible into German
In hiding over the winter of 1521–22, Luther translates the New Testament into German; it is printed at Wittenberg in September 1522. The Old Testament follows in parts, and the complete Bible appears in 1534.