Museum of Hamburg History

Entering the Hamburg park Planten un Blomen from the Millerntor side, we discover an imposing palace-like building reflected in the water of the pond, half-hidden behind the old trees. Its monumental form in dark red brick, with great sloping rooves crowned by a turret, make the Museum of Hamburg History seem more like a castle from a bygone age. Inside the building a striking spatial experience awaits, almost religious in its quality. At the end of an enormous hall, round-arched windows stretch - ing up to the ceiling allow unadulterated daylight to stream into the room as if through church windows. This phenomenon draws us towards it, leading us almost automatically into the high, open staircase at the end of the hall. Here, under a barrel-vaulted coffered ceiling in white and green, Hamburg’s most prominent families from the era before the First World War are commem orated. The rows of family coats of arms arranged symmetrically on the walls and the names carved into the sandstone give the space a solemn, dignified feel to this day. A thoughtfully planned and executed lighting scheme points the way to some of the museum’s oldest treasures in the hall on the first floor. On the right-hand side you can take the captain’s place on the bridge of the 1930s freighter Werner, listen to the ship’s horn and watch an early colour documentary film showing the Port of Hamburg in 1938. The museum’s most prominent and popular exhibit is also to be found in a glass case on the first floor here: a simple skull with a nail driven through the bone. It dates from the late Middle Ages and is said to be the skull of the most famous German pirate, Klaus Stortebeker (1360 to 1401).