The best and worst of Germany

The trees are covered with spikes of ice and underfoot the snow has turned iron hard. I've just arrived from soggy England to frozen Germany and I'm at the gates of Buchenwald, Hitler's biggest concentration camp, in the heart of Germany.

Buchenwald wasn't an extermination camp but a slave labour camp and is now a memorial to the horrors of the past. It incarcerated anyone the nazis didn't like; criminals, political prisoners, homosexuals, gypsies, Soviet soldiers and Allied airmen as well as Jews.

Conditions were so barbaric that 56,000 inmates died from illness, starvation, torture, murder and medical experimentation.

If ever there was a right time to visit this place, it's during the bleak, cruel winter when the cold chills to the bone and icy mist clouds the eyesight.

It's a terrible place to visit but it's important we don't forget and it's good that postwar Germans are able to publicly confront their nation's past.

Buchenwald is near the town of Weimar in the German state of Thuringia. Weimar has the most ambiguous history imaginable - high culture and terrible atrocities - a city dubbed "at once the best and worst place in German history".

Thuringia is in the geographical centre of Germany but I have to admit I'd never heard of it. It used to be part of the old GDR (Soviet-controlled East Germany) and this year is the 25th anniversary since the fall of the Iron Curtain. Before unification it was virtually inaccessible to the outside world, now it's a 90-minute flight from London Gatwick airport on a new Germania airline route.

Germany is a very different place today, just as it was before the disastrous 20th century conflicts - 2014 is another anniversary - 100 years since the beginning of World War I. There are 38 UNESCO World Heritage sites compared with 28 in the UK and 19 in Australia. They range from prehistoric discoveries, Roman ruins, medieval cities, Gothic cathedrals, palaces, religious locations, industrial landmarks and ancient beech forests.

I may not have heard of Thuringia but its musical and other luminaries are known around the world. J.S. Bach, Wagner, Liszt, Schumann, Strauss, Mendelssohn, Martin Luther, Goethe and Schiller, all variously stayed, lived or worked in Weimar.

From a more technological perspective Thuringia is also the birthplace of the Bauhaus movement, it's where Carl Zeiss made the world's best lenses and the infant FFE (FahrzeugFabrik Eisenach) gave birth to BMW.

Weimar is where the democratic constitution for the Weimar Republic was signed in 1919 - until Hitler tore it up in 1937.

It's a gloriously well-preserved town of cobbled streets, little artisan shops and around every corner there's a famous or infamous home of some historical organisation or character.

I stayed at the Hotel Elephant with its prime position on the spacious market square, dominated by Weimar's neo-Gothic town hall. Its belltower has an unusual set of porcelain bells from the nearby Meissen porcelain factory and they ring throughout the day but with a disappointingly flat resonance.

The Hotel Elephant has always been the place to stay and previous guests have included Goethe, Bach, Wagner, Thomas Mann and Hitler but more recently Sting and Pink Floyd. It's not only a charming hotel but its Anna Amalia restaurant is Weimar's only Michelin-starred establishment, serving an eclectic mix of Italian and German haute cuisine. Unfortunately it is closed during midwinter.

A short drive or train ride from Weimar is Erfurt - an even more impressive medieval town. The Merchants' Bridge at Erfurt is one of the most remarkable in Europe. It has a cobbled street with half-timbered houses, galleries, cafes and shops selling jewellery, woodcarvings and antiques and in many respects it's more impressive than the famous Ponte Vecchio in Florence.

Although it's not as long as the Ponte Vecchio, crossing it is more entertaining and picturesque. Built in 1325 and with houses and businesses on both sides it's probably more like the ancient London Bridge (of "falling down" fame).

The snow-covered landscape is so beautiful and on a bright sunny day a stunning way to appreciate it is on the treetop walkway at Hainich National Park. The trees belong to one of Germany's largest untouched beech forests and in winter it's a sea of white instead of green. At the walkway's highest point the forest can be seen stretching to the horizon, giving an impression of what central Europe looked like when it was covered by primeval forest.

In the forest lives a wildcat that's even more endangered than the Asian tiger. It's the European wildcat (Felis silvestris) that used to roam all over Europe. It's long gone from England and in Britain is now found only in Scotland, in ever-decreasing numbers.

It survives by avoiding people, so is incredibly difficult to see in the wild and its decline in Scotland is due primarily to hybridisation with domestic cats, especially the growing number of feral cats. I had my first ever sighting in the wildcat enclosure at Hainich National Park. The animals are not captive wildcats but breeding stock from zoos and their presence helps raise funds to support the wild population in the national park.

Yes, it does look like a large domestic tabby but it's not. Its fat, stubby, striped tail is a giveaway as would be your shredded hands and face if you were to try to pick one up.

On the way back to Weimar we stopped for a bite to eat in Muhlhausen, an amazing walled city, full of half-timbered houses and if it hadn't been so icy we would have walked on the city walls and stopped for coffee in one of the tiny cafes along its length. When we entered St Basil's church a local organist was playing the organ that Bach played when he was the town organist.

There are 450 more castles, palaces and stately homes that I didn't get to see in Thuringia, everywhere was such a surprise.

Thuringia is not simply one of Germany's cultural gems it's a European gem - fabulously preserved medieval city centres, an incredible musical and literary past, innumerable icons of ancient and modern history and some of Europe's most important natural landscapes.

• fact file *

·Germania is at flygermania.de/en.

·For Thuringia Tourism, see thuringia-tourism.com. For Hotel Elephant, go to hotelelephantweimar.com/en.

Thuringia is not simply one of Germany's cultural gems it's a European gem.