exploring Bremen & its surrounding areas
You are here: worth seeing in Schwachhausen district
Schwachhausen district
A part of the former Lloyd railway station, today's Courtyard, from Gustav-Deetjen-Allee at night. Also beautiful to see is the copper-roofed tower with a weather vane featuring a three-masted sailing ship that turns with the wind
On February 20, 1857, Hermann Heinrich Meier, Eduard Crüsemann, and Gustav Kulenkampff founded the shipping company Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) in Bremen. The Bremen merchants, after whom streets are named today in the Schwachhausen district, could not have foreseen that the company would one day become one of the largest shipping companies in the world. Their steamers served routes from Germany to Australia, East Asia, and across the Atlantic to New York (from 1863). The double-screw fast steamer with four funnels "Kaiser Wilhelm der Große" of NDL, launched in Stettin in 1897, won the coveted "Blue Ribbon" for the fastest Atlantic crossing that same year with an average speed of just over 22 knots (slightly more than 40 km/h) from Bremerhaven to New York and held it until 1900. The company reached its peak in 1914, when 116 steamers transported passengers and goods to many parts of the world, including countless emigrants. Between 1897 and 1914, millions of people emigrated from Europe, primarily to America. The height of this emigration wave made Bremerhaven the largest European emigration port, and NDL profited greatly from it. More on this is shown at the German Emigration Museum Deutsches Auswandererhaus) in Bremerhaven.
Model (on loan) of the 15,000 BRT passenger steamer "Berlin" of Norddeutscher Lloyd in the Focke-Museum, which was launched on March 24, 1925, at the "Bremer Vulkan" shipyard in Vegesack. The original ship has been lying at the bottom of the Black Sea since 1986
Although Norddeutscher Lloyd lost almost its entire fleet as a result of both World Wars, the company never went under until its merger with the Hamburg shipping company HAPAG to form HAPAG-Lloyd. The magnificent main building of NDL in the city center was destroyed, but the former and since 2001 protected Lloyd railway station still stands next to the north exit of the central station at the corner of Gustav-Deetjen-Allee and Theodor-Heuss-Allee in the Findorff district on the border with Schwachhausen. The brick building with a hipped roof, erected in 1913, served NDL for one year until the start of the war as a collection station for emigrants with their luggage before continuing to Bremerhaven. Later, the building was used as a second administrative seat and during the Nazi era by the Gestapo. Today, the Courtyard Hotel is located here.
The coat of arms of Norddeutscher Lloyd at the former Lloyd railway station
What wars and subsequent generations have spared from old buildings is increasingly threatened by the ravages of time. Softer building materials used in the past, such as sandstone, are naturally much more affected by external environmental influences than, for example, concrete. In the case of renovations, the expected costs sometimes exceed those of a new build. This is one reason, among others, why old houses continue to disappear from Bremen's cityscape. That said, not every building is worth preserving and protecting from a monument conservation perspective just because its construction dates back a hundred or more years.
Worth preserving: Part of the monument group in Hermann-Böse-Straße
However, the State Office for Monument Preservation has placed many residential houses in Schwachhausen under protection. In addition to many others in the district, such as on Parkallee, also in Hermann-Böse-Straße, which leads past the anti-colonial monument "Elephant." Branching off from it are Slevogtstraße and Goebenstraße. Here, as in the adjacent Delbrückstraße, entire rows of houses are protected as monument groups. The predominantly neoclassical buildings, sometimes historicist or with elements of Art Nouveau, were designed by architect and builder Wilhelm Blanke between 1900 and 1919 for well-to-do citizens. At that time, entire street sections were not infrequently created by a single hand. Overall, the Bremen architect, who died in 1945 and found his final resting place at Riensberg Cemetary, erected around 500 buildings in the Hanseatic city during his creative period and thus continues to shape the cityscape to this day.
The honor of the impressionist painter and graphic artist Max Slevogt by naming Slevogtstraße after him is connected with his artistic work in the Ratskeller under the town hall. In 1927, he painted scenes from Wilhelm Hauff's (1802-1827) "Phantasien im Bremer Ratskeller" on the walls of what is therefore called the Hauffkeller.
For the petroleum merchant Wilhelm August Korff, architects Friedrich Wellermann and Paul Frölich, as well as garden architect Christian Roselius, designed Villa Korff at Parkallee/Ecke Wachmannstraße in 1903
Not from Blanke's drawing board but from that of the Berlin architects Ferdinand Köhler, Otto Gröffel, and Paul Kranz comes the design for the building complex of the former Realgymnasium and today's bilingual Hermann-Böse-Gymnasium. The group from Charlottenburg had won the tender for the new building, and thus their design became a reality in sandstone between 1902 and the official inauguration in 1906. The Neo-Renaissance building with elements of Weser Renaissance, which extends along Hermann-Böse-Straße, Blumenthalstraße, and Hohenlohestraße, has been under monument protection since 1977 and is only a few meters away from today's anti-colonial monument.
Front view of the Hermann-Böse-Gymnasium with entrance portal in the style of Weser Renaissance
The elephant made of red moor-burned bricks was originally erected in 1932 as a reminder of German colonial history (in Africa), which, from today's perspective, offers little reason to be proud. Appropriately, the school bore the name of the German infantry general and commander of the Schutztruppe in Deutsch-Ostafrika, present-day Tanzania, during World War I, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, between 1933 and '45. The son of a Prussian infantry general lived in Bremen between his return in 1923 and 1945. Meanwhile, the barracks completed on about 10 hectares of land in the Vahr district in 1938 also bore his name, but that too belongs to the past.
The elephant on its pedestal, which contains a room, in Nelson-Mandela-Park
The school's current name, as well as the street it is located on, commemorates the politically active music teacher of the former Realgymnasium and resistance fighter against National Socialism Hermann Böse, who was close to the KPD. He died in 1943 from illness after his release from KZ Mißler in the Bremen district of Findorff.
Politics is often a shark tank in non-democratic societies where the lives of many actors are threatened and even extinguished. Those who sacrifice democracy today have learned nothing from the past. Photo: A very successful sculpture in Schwachhausen
While one has been stripped of reverence, another has been placed on a pedestal where he still stands today. And who was it? The Berlin sculptor Louis Tuaillon, whose workshop also produced the bronze statue "Der Rosselenker" (1902) in the Wallanlagen. And here at Slevogtstraße near the gymnasium? Since its unveiling on March 22, 1905, the field marshal and German Emperor Friedrich III has been seated in bronze in a heroic pose in the style of Roman imperial images on his horse and has been on the list of protected monuments since 1973. Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia was the son of Kaiser Wilhelm I from the House of Hohenzollern. And after his death in 1888, he ascended the throne. However, at that time he was already so severely afflicted with laryngeal cancer that he reigned for only 99 days until his death and was succeeded by his son Wilhelm II, who was finally deposed in 1918 after World War I. This ended the monarchy in Germany. In popular parlance, Friedrich III is known as the "99-Day Emperor," and the year of his brief reign is called the "Year of the Three Emperors."
Monument to Kaiser Friedrich III at Hermann-Böse-Straße, with houses under monument protection in Slevogtstraße in the background
By the way, until World War II, there was also a bronze equestrian monument with a stone pedestal of Kaiser Wilhelm I in Bremen. However, the neobaroque monument designed by sculptor Robert Bärwald and unveiled on Liebfrauenkirchhof in 1893 did not meet with universal approval among the population, and later considerations to relocate it to a less central location were never implemented. Instead, it was melted down as a "metal donation" for the armaments industry in 1942 after the figures on the pedestal representing Brema, Neptune, and the Reichsadler had already been removed in 1940.
Left: The mosaic relief "Oak," Peace Tree from November 2, 2010, by Regina Heygster
Never again war should be the lesson from the two world wars. In Bremen, a sign was set with the transformation of the Rembertitunnel at the end of Parkallee into the Friedenstunnel in the neighborhood of Slevogtstraße. However, according to the inscription, this was in response to the events of September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center in New York was the target of a devastating attack. The initiator of the project was graphic designer and freelance artist Regina Heygster. From the "Interessengemeinschaft Tunnel-Projekt" she initiated, the registered association "Friedenstunnel - Bremen setzt ein Zeichen" was founded in 2003, which has since managed the project. After years of preparatory work also financed through donations, the Friedenstunnel was inaugurated in 2015. Several mosaics are embedded in the front sides of the tunnel, and 82 text panels with the words of well-known and lesser-known people from many cultural circles and religions worldwide extend along both sides of the tunnel walls in the vault, subtly lit and underlined by multicolored LED light. Since 2016, musical events have taken place regularly in the tunnel as part of the concert series "Friedensklänge im Friedenstunnel," open and free for everyone. More about this art project can be found at: www.friedenstunnel.de
Found during excavations in St. Petri Dom, presumably in the grave of Archbishop Gerhard II: Crook of the bishop's staff with panther head from the 13th century, now in the collection of the Focke-Museum
More art and culture can be found in the also worth visiting Focke-Museum, the Bremen State Museum for Art and Cultural History in the Riensberg district of Schwachhausen. Conveniently, tram line 4 stops almost directly in front of the more extensive museum grounds with park.
previous page
next page
Map
Bremerhaven in general
Bremerhaven was founded only in 1827. To secure its importance as a port city amid the threat of silting up of the Weser River - the lifeline of Bremen - Bremen acquired 342 morgen (approximately 850 acres) of land at the mouth of the Weser from the Kingdom of Hanover for 74,000 talers in 1827 under then-mayor Johann Smidt. About 60 km downstream from Bremen, the first urgently needed seaport for Bremen, known as the Alte Hafen (Old Harbor), was established there by 1830.
read more ...
German Emigration Center Bremerhaven (Deutsches Auswandererhaus®)
Opened in 2005, the German Emigration Center® vividly and engagingly presents the history of emigration to America across five eras, spanning from 1830 to 1974. In total, 7.2 million people departed from Bremerhaven to seek a new home and build a new life beyond the Atlantic. For its emotionally compelling and historically grounded exhibition, the museum received the European Museum Award in 2007.
read more ...
Anti-Colonial Elephant Monument
The commissioning of this brick structure was carried out by the German Colonial Society, which inaugurated the monument on July 6, 1932. However, even at that time, the construction was controversial in this traditionally more cosmopolitan Hanseatic city. The monument did not merely commemorate those who fell in the First World War in former German colonies but also symbolized the oppression and exploitation of the indigenous populations there. Since its restoration and repurposing in 1989, the Elephant has stood as an Anti-Colonial Monument representing equality and justice, serving as a warning against racism, oppression, and exploitation.
read more ...
Riensberg Cemetary
Located near the Focke Museum, this cemetery was established between 1872 and 1875 as a replacement for two abandoned cemeteries elsewhere, simultaneously with Waller cemetery. Today, the well-maintained park cemetery spans approximately 28 hectares on the former estate of Riensberg. The landscape gardener and garden architect Wilhelm Benque was commissioned to design its horticultural layout. He had previously been responsible for the artistic landscaping of Bürgerpark and, among others, Knoops Park in Lesum.
read more ...
Town Hall
The original Old Town Hall on market square was built between 1405 and 1412. Little of this originally rather plain late Gothic brick structure remains today. The Renaissance façade, which gives the UNESCO-protected building its distinctive appearance, was constructed between 1608 and 1614 by Lüder von Bentheim. Above the arcades in particular, it is lavishly adorned with various depictions from ancient mythology, blending uniquely with Christian symbolism, Bremen city symbols, and other representations.
read more ...
Wallanlagen
Almost entirely surrounding the old town is a zigzagging park landscape with a moat. These are the last visible remnants of the fortifications that enclosed the old town and parts of the new town until the early 19th century. The transformation into a garden landscape began in 1802 with the first section between the Weser River and Herdentor Gate.
read more ...
Übersee-Museum (Overseas Museum)
In 1896, what is now known as the Übersee-Museum first opened its doors under the name 'Municipal Museum for Natural History, Ethnology, and Commerce.' The exhibits initially came from the 'Municipal Collections of Natural History and Ethnography,' which were partly displayed as a 'Trade and Colonial Exhibition' at the 'Northwest German Trade and Industry Exhibition' in 1890 with great success. Since its founding, the museum's concepts have changed several times, evolving toward a stronger focus on museum education that continues to this day.
read more ...
Bürgerpark (Citizens' Park)
A green oasis near the city center and a popular recreational area is the Bürgerpark. This extensive park, which adjoins today's Bürgerweide behind the train station, was initiated by the citizens themselves. In the early 19th century, the old defensive structures of the city had already been dismantled, transforming the ramparts into a landscaped park. However, as the city rapidly expanded throughout the century, demands for more green spaces grew louder and louder.
read more ...
Focke-Museum
Every city has its history, and in many cities, there is a museum that tells this story. In the Hanseatic city, it is the Focke Museum in the Riensberg district, where urban history is presented most vividly. The "Bremer State Museum of Art and Cultural History" was established in 1924 by merging two collections: the Gewerbemuseum, founded in 1884, and the Historisches Museum für bremische Altertümer (Historical Museum for Bremen Antiquities), founded six years later. The museum's founder, who passed away in 1922, also gave it his name.
read more ...
Cycling to Lilienthal
It's about 11 kilometers from Bremen's city center to Lilienthal in Lower Saxony, just beyond the city limits. While tram line 4 connects both places, a bike tour is much more fun. Along the Jan-Reiners-Weg, you can cycle through a green landscape without car traffic, and even within Lilienthal itself, the route follows small paths along the Wörpe River with light traffic, leading to the historic city center.
read more ...
