Leipzig Trade Fair

Since 1996, the fair has taken place on the Leipzig fairgrounds, located about 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) north of the city centre.

In 1268, Margrave Theodoric of Landsberg assured all merchants travelers to Leipzig full protection for person and goods, even if their sovereign was at feud with him.

In 1523, the Augsburg merchant family Welser built a big house with shops at the Markt 8 (today's Barthels Hof), the rival Fuggers had factories as well.

They normally contained several interconnected courtyards with shops, storage areas, and living space (Mädlerpassage, Petershof, Handelshof, Specks Hof, Drei Könige etc.)

During World War II, the area of the technical fair was used for military production and partly destroyed by bombs.

When the GDR joined the RGW (Comecon) in 1950, the fair was used to present the production of East Germany's Warsaw Pact neighbours - not only to each other, but also to nations of the capitalist West.

The Leipzig Trade Fair, during the period 1949 to 1989, served both propagandistic and economic functions in its attempts to organise visits from Western nations.

Trade was instrumental to the SED's plans for East German recognition, with increased trade relations between the GDR and Westerners believed to be the key to Western governments re-evaluating East Germany's international status as a mere occupation zone the Soviets were yet to leave.

[2] British delegations, often from the UK Labour Party and associated groups, were frequent during the late 1950s and early 1960s and included a variety of prominent politicians, including Anthony Greenwood, Ian Mikardo, and Clement Davies: many of those who attended would go on to campaign for official recognition of the German Democratic Republic until the early 1970s.

In August 1961, Willy Brandt (then Mayor of Berlin) called for an international boycott of the fair and a host of other East German functions in response to the Wall going up, which illustrates how the Leipzig Trade Fair was of great importance to the Cold War struggles over the legitimacy and recognition of the East German state.

There are two people leading the Leipziger Messe GmbH: the CEO is Mr. Martin Buhl-Wagner and the CTO is Mr. Markus Geisenberger.