Partner
St. Jakobus-Gesellschaft Sachsen-Anhalt e.V.
The association behind the Way of St James through Saxony-Anhalt, founded in December 2005: it looks after the route, issues pilgrim passports, collects hostels and runs Saturday pilgrimages across the state stage by stage.
The Camino on the map
Caminos of this partner
Who stands behind the route
The St. Jakobus-Gesellschaft Sachsen-Anhalt e.V. was founded in December 2005, the same year the Way of St James through the state was opened. Its roots lie in a working group called “St. Jakobus-Pilgerwege in Sachsen-Anhalt”: after 2001, pilgrims who had been to Santiago themselves looked for like-minded people in Magdeburg – and found a gap on the map. Between Brandenburg and Thuringia, the middle section of a continuous route to Santiago was missing.
It was closed as a joint project: the State of Saxony-Anhalt, the Protestant Church of the Church Province of Saxony, the Protestant Church of Anhalt, the Catholic Diocese of Magdeburg, the Saxony-Anhalt hiking association and the Franconian St James Society all pulled together. The association is ecumenical to this day: the Catholic diocese and the Protestant church sit together on its board.
The association's routes
The association has one route, and it is a long one:
- Jakobsweg Sachsen-Anhalt – 436.1 km on the Camino Ninja map from Bad Wilsnack via Havelberg, Tangermünde, Stendal, Magdeburg, the northern edge of the Harz and the Mansfeld region to Freyburg on the Unstrut; signposted for about 370 km from Vehlen on the Brandenburg border to Eckartsberga on the Thuringian border
Along the way are 32 Protestant and Catholic churches and monasteries with a pilgrim stamp, from the abbey church of Jerichow to Magdeburg Cathedral. The route is waymarked with the yellow shell on a blue background.
What the association does for pilgrims
The society issues the pilgrim passport – apply online or with a form at least 14 days before you set off, for a contribution of €5 (as of October 2026). There is also a walking guide with 35 maps at 1:50,000 and route descriptions for €10.50 (as of October 2026), a pilgrim handbook and the conference volume “Ich bin dann mal auf dem Weg”. The website also has route descriptions, an overview map and suggestions for day walks.
The association itself calls its hostel network “loosely knit” – so it asks parishes and host families to offer pilgrim beds and keeps an up-to-date hostel list to download. Its best-known offer is Saturday pilgrimage: in 2026 on eight Saturdays from March to October, meeting each time at a station on the route, so that stage by stage the whole state comes together. On top of that come pilgrim tours such as “ANHALT Schritt für Schritt” from the Harz to Dessau and a cycling pilgrimage for peace that rides one week a year from Magdeburg a little further towards Flüeli in Switzerland.
Contact and getting involved
Website: jakobusweg-sachsen-anhalt.de with the pilgrim passport application, hostel list, events and the newsletter “Auf geht's” · Office: Kirchplatz 3, 06333 Hettstedt. The statutes and membership application can be downloaded from the website. If you live along the route, you can offer pilgrims a bed yourself – that is exactly what the association is looking for.