We had huge trade fairs twice a year that my father would take me to – the same ones that had made Leipzig one of the most cultured and wealthy cities in Europe. Leipzig’s location and importance as a trading city made it a nexus for the spread of new technologies and ideas. Its university, Germany’s second oldest, was founded in 1409. The world’s first daily newspaper began publication in Leipzig in 1650. A city of books, of music, of opera. As a boy, I truly believed that I was part of the most enlightened, most cultured, most sophisticated – certainly the most educated – society in the
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