Bremen’s geography is weird

There is a part of Bremen inside Bremerhaven, which is a part of Bremen. That sentence is true, but to understand it, you need to understand the city’s history. Make yourselves comfortable, this is going to take a little while.

Chapters:
00:00 A tale of two cities
01:41 Geographical weirdness
02:22 How Bremen began
04:18 A constant evolution
05:19 Musicians and serial murder
06:26 The street that Hitler hated
08:44 The old dock, ropes and tiny houses
10:39 Tar and gunpowder
11:20 Expansion plans and competition
12:43 A random tourist attraction
13:13 Too much success
14:29 Bremen gets the biggest port
16:38 A two-city state, and its beer
17:23 Tips for travellers

Music:

“On My Way Home”
by The 126ers
YouTube Audio Library

“M Fischer”
by Mini Vandals
YouTube Audio Library

“Tasty Waves”
by National Sweetheart
YouTube Audio Library

“Style Funk” and “Hot Swing”
by Kevin McLeod https://incompetech.com/
Creative Commons Attribution licence

Some maps created using data from
OpenStreetMap https://openstreetmap.org/

———

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I am in Bremen. At least, an exclave of Bremen that happens to be completely surrounded
by the city of Bremerhaven. Bremerhaven is one part of the state of Bremen, of which Bremen is the other part. And they’re separated by… Okay, look, this is going to
take some time to explain. [TRUCK HONKS] Thank you. Last year I made a Short in which I asserted that since Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen are
city-states, they don’t have state capitals, and I was immediately corrected in the comments: the state of Bremen is actually
two cities, Bremen and Bremerhaven, and its capital is the city of Bremen. And that’s true: I stand corrected.
But it’s a bit more complicated than that. And what makes Bremen even more confusing is that there is a part
of Bremen inside Bremerhaven. So for that reason, and for no other,
I decided I had to take a look for myself. Of course, now what I realise is that this is
going to be a video about two cities. So… …cue music? And this is a clue to the main driving force
behind the history of Bremen and Bremerhaven: it’s the remains of a 19th-century dry dock, built using what was at the time
cutting-edge technology. But let’s start this video properly,
in the bigger and older of the two cities. Bremen does attract quite a lot of tourists, and if you’ve already visited, you’re probably already familiar with,
at the very least, the market place. We’ll get back to that, but first
let’s talk about this weird geography. One of the first things you notice about the state
of Bremen is that it’s in two separate parts: there’s the city of Bremen itself, but about 50 km to the north
is the city of Bremerhaven. The only way to get from one to the other
is through the state of Lower Saxony. But it gets worse, because inside Bremerhaven
is an exclave of Bremen. Not many people live there, because
it’s mainly docks and warehouses, but it’s a little piece of the city of Bremen
completely surrounded by Bremerhaven. So how did we get to this state of affairs? Well, to answer that question, we have to
look at the history of Bremen — and it’s very old. Humans have been settling here
for thousands of years, on the river Weser, but
protected from floods by the dunes. In the 8th century, when Charlemagne
was busy Christianizing this part of Europe, the diocese of Bremen was created and a cathedral was built
and dedicated to St Peter. This is obviously not the original,
but a much younger replacement. The main doors feature biblical scenes, but, as the Church acknowledges, some of the depictions of the Israelites
and Jews are a little on the antisemitic side. These carvings have been kept
as a reminder to the faithful that they mustn’t think themselves
immune to prejudice. As it turned out,
Bremen’s location was quite fortunate: ships could sail up
the river Weser and unload here; so during the Middle Ages, the city grew
in importance as a city of trade and commerce, and joined the Hanseatic League, a trading
partnership of cities and towns in northern Europe. How this helped increase Bremen’s wealth is evident in the historic architecture
that still survives from this period. If you’ve seen some of my previous travel videos, you’ll recognize the Roland statue which stands guard over market places
in many northern and eastern German cities. This one was erected in 1404
to replace an earlier version, but the bishop took offence: he interpreted it as standing in opposition
to the authority of the Church. Thanks to his overreaction, Roland statues everywhere came be seen as
symbols of liberty and independence. So, here’s what slightly
depresses me about this place: you can be looking at something like this,
and then you just turn around and… Ugh! Of course, like most major German cities, Bremen
was heavily bombed in the Second World War and had to be rebuilt. Not everything was put back as it originally was, and unfortunately Bremen was one of those cities
that decided to embrace the age of the motor-car, which led to this. Seriously: this is basically the entrance
to the historic city centre. Okay, let’s not be too harsh: it seemed like a good idea at the time,
and there are worse places in Germany. It’s also worth bearing in mind that cities like this have
always been changing and evolving, and so it’s hard to know
what counts as its “original state”: this ensemble, for example, was built in 1911
to look older than it is, incoporating bits from
older buildings that had been demolished. And then the whole thing
had to be rebuilt in the 1950s. And we have a reference here
to the Town Musicians of Bremen, a fairy tale about four elderly animals
hoping to find fame and fortune. In the original story,
they never actually reach Bremen, and it’s even possible they were
looking for a much less famous Bremen not far from where the Brothers Grimm grew up. Now, the average tourist might miss this one: it’s a spitting stone, and it marks
the spot where Gesche Gottfried was executed: this was the last public execution
to take place in Bremen. Or possibly it was the place where
her head rolled to after she was beheaded, nobody seems to be quite sure. She killed 15 people by poisoning them with arsenic while pretending to nurse them back to health. Her first victim was her husband, followed by other members of her family,
her second husband, a fiancé, friends, her landlord’s wife,
and a three-year-old girl. All the time it was thought they had fallen ill
and she was selflessly caring for them, earning her the nickname of the “Angel of Bremen”. It wasn’t until her landlord found
strange white granules in his ham that the truth came to light. Just off the market place is a part
of town that was built in the 1920s in a style which, 100 years ago,
must have seemed daringly new. But if you’re here at the right time, you can join a crowd of tourists listening
to this glockenspiel play a selection of tunes. [MUSIC] Let us also enjoy these
modern scultures depicting, apparently, Day, Night, Evening, Twilight, and Youth, who appears to have been polished by generations of, I’m guessing, young
male tourists in serious need of a girlfriend. Tucked away in one corner is a reference to
a legend about the founding of Bremen. Fishermen looking for a safe place to settle
saw a hen with her chicks, and reasoned that if chickens
could live here, so could they. And then there is this building, built in 1927 partly as a museum dedicated to
an artist called Paula Modersohn-Becker, and which itself was conceived as a work of art. Nine years later, Adolf Hitler
made a speech in Nuremberg denouncing this building
and everything it stood for; but he also suggested that
it should be allowed to remain as an example of the “degenerate” art
everyone was supposed to hate. That’s when this image of St Michael
killing the dragon was added, supposedly symbolizing the destruction of the past and the introduction of
the new Thousand-Year Reich. This fountain depicts the story
of the Seven Lazy Brothers: unwilling to work on their father’s farm
they travelled to faraway places, but on their travels they learned
new ways of irrigating farmland and so were able to save
their family from starvation. The fountain includes
the inevitable Town Musicians, but the last one is missing,
replaced by a sign. I wonder, though, if
the translator was aware that the English word these days
is used with a very different meaning, and how long it will be before the sign is stolen. More bizarrely, it is claimed that,
during renovation work in 1991, a leg-bone belonging to the donkey was found, together with documented proof
that the story is true. As my father used to say:
if you believe that, you’ll believe anything. But returning to reality, Bremen’s strategic location on
the river Weser made it a convenient port; and this being such an important factor
in the city’s success means that there’s no way this is going to
turn out to be a tacky tourist trap. It wasn’t just trade and commerce, but supporting industries related to
shipbuilding that got a boost. One of the oldest parts of the city,
which survived the war relatively intact, is named after its main street “Schnoor”, from a Low German word meaning “rope”, since that was an important thing
that was manufactured here. In fact, if you’re interested, this is the headquarters of
the Institute of the Low German Language, that being a kind of sister language to the
High German the standard dialect is based on. Of course, if you want to do something
to really tell your friends about, you could come down this little street and rent what claims to be
Germany’s smallest house. It’s about 4 square metres in total and can accommodate up to two people
for about €100 a night. If that’s not impressive enough,
down this alleyway is the Wedding House, which is probably
the smallest hotel in the world. In the Middle Ages couples from outside the city could rent an apartment
for just a couple of days to prove they could afford a place to live — apparently a requirement to get married. Looking at a map, we can easily
spot the telltale signs of a system of baroque city fortifications
built in the 17th century, and now a much-appreciated green space. But we also see this little
piece of land: the Tar Yard. Tar was important for shipbuilding,
but it was a fire hazard, and so the city ordered the tar makers
to relocate here for safety reasons. And not just that, but gunpowder was
stored here for the same reason, which caused a nasty explosion in 1739. Incidentally, the buildings you see
here now are mostly modern, but built as apartments and offices
to resemble the old packhouses. But the port of Bremen was
quite a long way inland, and had problems with its tiny docks silting up. By the 19th century it simply wasn’t able to cope, and this is where we travel north
to the mouth of the river Weser. In 1827, the mayor of Bremen, Johann Smidt, bought some land where
the river Geeste flowed into the Weser, where bigger, more modern docks could be built. This was Bremerhaven —
literally “Bremen’s harbour”: basically the docks themselves,
which somewhere for the workers to live. This land was purchased for 73,658 talers,
17 groats and a penny from the Kingdom of Hanover. This is the village church of Geestendorf, at this point still owned by Hanover. It was likely built in the 15th century
to replace a much older wooden church, although this depiction of the kind of thing
the locals prayed very hard about is clearly much more recent. Hanover had never allowed the settlements here
to build any decent harbours, but with Bremerhaven under construction
the kingdom was spurred into action. This map from 1849 shows
the new settlement of Geestemünde, hastily founded so that Hanover could
build its own docks and compete with Bremen. As far as I can make out, this is
the historic centre of Geestemünde. And, Bremerhaven, this is no way
to treat a historic market place. Incidentally, while I was searching
for some good views of the docks, I found the most random
tourist attraction I have ever encountered. It was a prop for “Troublemakers”, a spaghetti western comedy
starring Bud Spencer and Terence Hill in their last movie together. The prop found its way to Bremerhaven, disappeared, was tracked down by fans,
restored, and put on display here — outside a training centre for the unemployed
where the average tourists will never find it. Bremerhaven, of course, grew, and
established itself as a major port. And if you’re American of German ancestry, and your ancestors left Europe
in the 19th century, there’s a good chance they came through here. The main campus of the college is built on the site of a building that housed
emigrants as they waited for their ships: this is the only remaining
fragment of that building, which was only in operation for a few years before the railways meant travellers could
easily plan to get to Bremerhaven on the day they were due to set sail. Here it is, converted into a brewery. Today, this monument is supposed to represent
the rocky transition to an uncertain future. But for Bremen itself, the port’s success
started to become a problem. Here’s the situation: the city of Bremen owns a small patch of
land on the coast for its maritime industry, but the towns of Lehe and
Geestemünde are competing with it, and drawing trade away from
the city of Bremen itself. So, beginning in 1887, Bremen started
building new, modern docks still within the city limits,
but a little way out on the outskirts. This is the first of them, the Europe Dock. This one is now a marina, but some of the docks in this
part of town are still in operation. In the 1920s the towns of Lehe
and Geestemünde were amalgamated to become the new city of Wesermünde, but it still wasn’t part of the state of Bremen. And then in 1938, something interesting happened: the city of Bremen took over
the big harbours in the north. Then in the following year, the city
of Bremerhaven itself was handed over to Prussia, and amalgamated with Wesermünde. This left Bremen in charge
only of the shipping terminals, and it remains so to this day. This was — and still is — one of the
most important ports in the world. As a free port, it has its own
customs and taxation regulations, with customs posts on the roads
leading out of the area. In fact, the customs post at the southern end
was built in the 1930s, and features a Nazi version
of the Imperial Eagle — although the swastika has been removed from it. Following the Second World War,
more changes were made. What was the free Hanseatic city of Bremen
became a state in its own right, like the city-states of Berlin and Hamburg. But this new state then also
acquired the city of Wesermünde, which was renamed Bremerhaven. And so the situation is as follows: Bremen consists of the city itself,
plus the port as an exclave. That exclave is surrounded
by the city of Bremerhaven. Both cities together comprise the state of Bremen. And this became a problem
when the covid pandemic first hit: Bremen became a hotspot, while Bremerhaven
had relatively low infection rates. Since the port counts as part of Bremen, it was subject to stricter regulations, even though it was physically
located in Bremerhaven. This arrangement has consequences. Although this is a part of Bremen, certain responsibilities,
such as garbage collection, have been delegated to Bremerhaven. The Bremerhaven police patrol on land; but on the water, that’s
the responsibility of the Bremen police. In a sense, the city of Bremen is
the capital city of a two-city state. But then the members of the city parliament of
Bremen are also members of the state parliament, while Bremerhaven has its own city parliament, so I think it’s more accurate to say that Bremen is a city-state, but one part of it has a high degree of autonomy. But that may be hair-splitting: perhaps the best we can say is
that Bremen is unique in Germany. Finally, I can confirm that Beck’s beer
really is brewed in Bremen, Germany, as the ads claim. But the company brews other beers as well; and if you want to set yourself
apart from the average tourist, go for Haake-Beck.
That’s the one the locals drink. If your ancestors emigrated through Bremen, you should probably consider visiting the German
Emigration Centre Museum in Bremerhaven. There are two trains an hour
between the two cities: the RS trains take around 45 minutes, and the RE trains are about 10 minutes faster.