A Magdeburg town hall was first mentioned in 1244. It was created in the course of the expansion work on the former warehouse/shop of the furriers' guild and was intended to serve as a sign of the self-government of the city's citizens. From that building, only the Ratskeller survived the numerous destructions, which is still used as a restaurant today.
In 1293 that town hall fell victim to a fire, but was rebuilt in the same year...
In 1540 the town hall was renovated, together with the Magdeburg Roland and the Magdeburg Rider standing in front of it. The building was also expanded and a 16 hundredweight bell was hung in the town hall tower.
During the destruction of Magdeburg in the Thirty Years' War, the town hall burned down. The city archive was also destroyed in this fire, so that today there are hardly any documents from the time before that date. Reconstruction began around the middle of the 17th century. However, it took years for the devastated city to recover from the effects of war and work was not completed until 1713. In 1820 the town hall tower had to be demolished due to dilapidation and a new one was built. A little later, the town hall received a new pendulum clock, and in 1827 a lightning rod. Over time, the town hall became too small for the growing administration, so that in 1889 a new municipal service building was built to the east of what is now the old town hall. At the end of the 19th century, the town hall was connected to the city's power grid. At that time, the administration again reached spatial limits, so that in the years 1905 to 1907 the present-day New Town Hall was built north of the Old Town Hall. The municipal savings bank, the city library and the city archive (which can still be found here today) moved in here.
The old town hall was badly damaged by air raids on September 28, 1944 and January 16, 1945, and the new town hall burned down. The reconstruction of the two town halls only began in 1950, and the municipal service building was demolished. The town hall was largely built in its historical form (i.e. without the various conversions and additions of the past centuries). Construction work was not completed until 1979. In 1970, the bronze town hall door by the sculptor Heinrich Apel was installed, showing scenes from Magdeburg's history.
Source: Wikipedia