Germany’s second-largest city, Hamburg, is awash with history — and played especially key roles in the stories of 19th-century emigration, the Second World War and the Beatles.
It’s also a thriving 21st-century metropolis with an inviting harbour boardwalk, avant-garde architecture, and Las Vegas- style nightlife. Every visit here makes me wonder why so many Americans skip it. I love this city.
Even though it’s about 100 kilometres from the North Sea, Hamburg’s seaport on the Elbe River was the world’s third largest a century ago.
But the Second World War devastated the commercial centre, and during the Cold War, trade to the east was cut off. Port traffic dwindled, and so did the city’s influence.
But Hamburg has been enthusiastically rebuilt, and, since Germany’s reunification, it has regained its former status as a leading trade centre.
Hamburg’s port has evolved with the city’s needs and changes in shipping technology.
One example is HafenCity, a huge development project that enlarged downtown Hamburg by about 40 per cent.
The centrepiece is the striking Elbphilharmonie — a combination concert hall, public plaza, hotel and apartment complex. Its daring design and huge size fit in well with the massive scale of the surrounding port.
Water seems to be everywhere in this city of nearly 2,500 bridges.
Hamburg’s delightful lakes — the Aussenalster and Binnenalster — were created in the Middle Ages, when townsfolk built a mill that dammed the local river.
Back in the 1950s, a law guaranteed public access to the Aussenalster, and today, peaceful paths and bike lanes are a hit with locals.
Along with plenty of downtown parkland, the lakes provide Hamburg — one of Germany’s greenest cities — with an elegant promenade, the Jungfernstieg, which comes complete with top-of-the-line shops.
Just a block away, Hamburg’s massive city hall, built in the 19th century, overlooks a lively scene. It’s flanked by graceful arcades and surrounded by plenty of commerce.
With its bold architecture and salty waterfront atmosphere, Hamburg feels nothing like Germany’s inland cities to the south. And at first glance, it’s hard to believe that it was one of the most heavily bombed cities in the Second World War.
With its strategic port, munitions factories and transportation links, Hamburg was a prime target for the Allies. On July 27, 1943, they hit the city centre first with bombs to open roofs, break water mains and tear up streets — making it hard for firefighters to respond. Then came a hellish onslaught of incendiary bombs: 700 bombers concentrated their attack on a relatively small area.
The result was a firestorm — a tornado of flames reaching horrific temperatures. In three hours, the inferno killed more than 40,000 people, left hundreds of thousands homeless and reduced 21 square kilometres of Hamburg to rubble and ashes.
Somehow, the towering spire of St. Nicholas’s Church survived the bombing. It and the ruins of the church itself are now a memorial, left to commemorate those lost and to remind future generations of the horrors of war. In its museum, you’ll see scorched and melted fragments demonstrating the heat of the firestorm.
Though Hamburg is mostly rebuilt, many Second World War-era bunkers were just too expensive to tear down. So they survive, incorporated into today’s cityscape. In Florapark, a green space in the Schulterblatt neighbourhood, one old bunker is now a graffiti-covered climbing wall.
A bunker in the St. Pauli neighbourhood is filled with concert venues, recording studios and dance clubs — and heavy metal rock bands here never draw complaints from their neighbours.
Hamburg’s Reeperbahn thoroughfare has long been the heart of Germany’s most famous entertainment zone. It gained notoriety as a rough and sleazy sailors’ quarter filled with nightclubs and brothels.
But, as the city has changed, so has its entertainment district. Today, this street — where the Beatles launched their careers in 1960 — is a destination for theatre and live music. Considered the Broadway of Germany for its many musicals, the boulevard attracts theatre-goers from all over the country.
Outside the city centre, another popular destination is the BallinStadt Emigration Museum. For Germans in North America, Hamburg has a special meaning, because their ancestors may have sailed from this harbour.
Millions of Germans and other Europeans emigrated from this city between 1850 and 1930.
The museum tells the story of emigration through Hamburg from the mid-19th century through the Second World War.
An unforgettable capper to your Hamburg visit is its harbour tour — the best of its kind in Europe. You’ll see plenty of Hamburg’s bold new architecture, as well as its more established beach communities. But mostly, an hour-long cruise gets you up close to Hamburg’s shipping industry — all those enormous container ships, cranes and dry docks.
Hamburg is one of the great “undiscovered” cities in Europe.
A visit here showcases a wealthy city with a strong economy that rose like a phoenix from a terrible recent past.
Rick Steves (ricksteves.com) writes European travel guidebooks and hosts travel shows on public television and public radio. Email him at [email protected] and follow his blog on Facebook.
