But, of course, a region must also look ahead – and that is a lot easier once you have secured your hinterland: mediaeval castles such as the ancestral seat of the Wettiner family, which stands in solitary splendour over the River Saale not far from Halle; the beautiful half-timbered houses of Quedlinburg; the more than 500-year-old University of Wittenberg and Halle; Naumburg cathedral with the world-famous statues of its founders, Ekkehart and Uta; the Bauhaus which moved Weimar to Dessau; the Pietist August Hermann Francke’s educational institution in Halle – this all makes Saxony-Anhalt a good place to live.

The area bordered by the Harz and Lausitz mountain ranges, Thuringia’s Holzland and Fläming is a microcosm of 20th century political and economic history. The Mansfelder Land was already found to be a treasure trove of silver and Kupferschiefer ore back in the Middle Ages, and right up to the final years of the GDR this area of Central Germany was ploughed up more and more ruthlessly to extract its rich deposits of lignite (brown coal). Open-cast mines and industrial plants for refining the coal scarred the landscape. Huge chemical plants grew up between Merseburg, Halle and Bitterfeld.

But if you come to Saxony-Anhalt today, you will find ultramodern plants and industries with great future potential, where dilapidated, old factories once stood. The big names of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry are producing for international markets. Enercon is building wind turbines, Q-Cells are producing powerful solar cells, and Mercateo, Germany’s biggest online B2B Internet marketplace looks after its customers and suppliers from here.

All this has come at a price, however. Many people have lost their jobs because their companies were unable to survive in a market economy. A lot of young people in particular have left to look for work wherever they can find it. The consequences for Saxony-Anhalt’s towns are clearly visible: a dwindling population, empty apartments and houses, demolished buildings.

But nothing will improve unless the region helps itself. This is why there are plans for an international building exhibition devoted to urban reconstruction. The first projects have already been launched under the auspices of the Dessau Bauhaus. How should urban areas and rural infrastructure look in twenty years time? How will the generations live together here? It would appear that other Länder could soon be benefiting from Saxony-Anhalt’s experience and solutions.

Many towns and villages now exude so much self-confidence that it is infectious. You will be surprised by the transformation of Halle’s old town, which had been completely lost in the greyness of the GDR years, and by the beauty of once war-ravaged towns such as Halberstadt and Magdeburg, or the old Hanseatic town of Salzwedel with its fully restored half-timbered houses in the Altmark region, a real-life Sleeping Beauty that has been “awakened with a kiss”.