Erfurt, a city of approximately 200,000 inhabitants and the capital of the free state of Thuringia, looks back over more than 1250 years of history. Located at the crossroads of important medieval trade routes, Erfurt was the region‘s commercial, political, and cultural center. The biographies of many prominent thinkers, such as Meister Eckhart, Martin Luther, Ulrich von Hutten, Adam Ries, and Wilhelm von Humboldt, were closely connected to Erfurt‘s history.