Auerbachs Keller

The Mädlerpassage replaced the former Auerbachs Hof, a trade fair building complex, erected about 1530 at the behest of Heinrich Stromer (1482–1542), city councillor, professor of medicine, and rector of Leipzig University.

He was the personal physician of several princes, such as Duke George of Saxony or the Hohenzollern brothers Elector Joachim I of Brandenburg and Archbishop Albert of Mainz.

Young Goethe often visited Auerbach's Cellar while studying at Leipzig University from 1765 to 1768 and called it his favorite wine bar.

He saw there two paintings on wood dating from 1625, one depicting the legendary magician and astrologer Johann Georg Faust drinking with students and the other showing him riding out the door astride a wine barrel, something he could have accomplished only with the help of the Devil.

The scene Auerbach’s Cellar in Leipzig in his drama Faust I is his literary memorial to his student tavern and to the city, albeit an ironic one.