Prettin

Prettin is a town and a former municipality in Wittenberg district in Saxony-Anhalt.Geography and transportationThe town lies about 30 km southeast of Wittenberg and about 12 km north-northwest of Torgau in the lowland on the Elbe's east bank, west of the Annaburg Heath. This is, however, to a great extent a Bundeswehr troop drilling ground, and is therefore off limits. West of the community runs the Federal Highway (Bundesstraße) B 182, and to the north is the B 187. In the south, the community borders on Saxony. Prettin is linked with the Saxon community of Dommitzsch by a ferry on the Elbe.HistoryLying at an old river crossing in the Elbe valley, the first settlers in the Prettin area were Slavs, and the area itself belonged to the Slavic domain of Nisizi. After the German Burgward ("castle district"), which first crops up in one of Otto I's documents as "Pretimi", had passed in 1012 from Archbishop Dagino to the Church estate of Magdeburg, and then by way of the County of Brehna in 1290 to the Dukes of Saxony-Wittenberg, Rudolf I of Saxony-Wittenberg built the so-called "Schlösschen" (little castle) about 1335. In this small hunting lodge, the Electress Elisabeth von Brandenburg, who had secretly given herself over to Evangelical teachings, found refuge between 1536 and 1545 after the staunchly Catholic Elector Joachim I of Brandenburg had threatened to have her walled up alive. Only after his death did she return to the capital. Some thirty years later, Elector August of Saxony had the Schlösschen torn down and the stones used to build Lichtenburg Castle, which centuries later would become infamous.