2023-11-05 08:11:00
Is it possible without him? No. There is no escaping the flute player. He can be found in an inscription on the Pied Piper’s House from 1602 and on Wednesdays in the open-air musical “Rats”, he sits at the fountain and acts as a city guide from Friday to Sunday. No souvenir can do without a reference to the legend. That also deserves respect: What other city would adorn itself with a story in which it comes off so poorly?
Because it was the people of Hamelin’s own fault that the Pied Piper kidnapped their children into a mountain, never to be seen again. According to legend, they had previously withheld from him the promised reward for drowning the rodents in 1284. By cultivating this history, the city of 56,000 inhabitants on the southwestern edge of Lower Saxony is showing the courage to let itself be irritated.
The city and its surroundings also positively irritate visitors. The merchant houses in the center are much more magnificent than would be expected from an average German old town, and the promenades are much busier in the evenings than in places of comparable size.
Source: Infographic WELT
The adjoining Weserbergland does not twilight like other low mountain ranges, but invites you to go hiking on graceful winding paths and in the valley to leisurely gondolas on the Weser cycle path. Along the way, evidence of historical upheavals.
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And before going to bed in the city, another irritation: Every evening at just before ten o’clock – this probably goes back to the British military administration after the Second World War – the bells of the Hameln Cathedral ring no matter what.
Battle for the houses in the old town of Hamelin
How this also contradicts common expectations in the city museum, a well-restored ensemble of two Weser Renaissance buildings, where the Pied Piper legend is performed. Not as a pretty puppet show, but expressionistically as a mechanical theater with grotesque rods and bright lighting effects, with racing rat shadows and a squeaking treasure chest. In the end, all the little shoes and all the little shirts of the kidnapped children go away. This tugs at the heartstrings of the audience.
The city museum is housed in two buildings – the canons’ house (l.) and the Leisthaus
Source: Hauke-Christian Dittrich/picture alliance/dpa
What historical truth there might be in the legend is also discussed in the expertly furnished museum: It is currently considered likely that the Pied Piper story was influenced by experiences of medieval Eastern colonization, during which young people could have disappeared from their home on the Weser and moved to eastern regions .
Hamelin’s history has also been dramatic in recent times. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the city was the scene of conflicts that affected all of West Germany and shaped the appearance of many old cities. As part of the post-war modernization, the dilapidated old town was to be brought into shape with parking decks, demolitions and new buildings, and a good 150 old houses were to be demolished.
Fortunately, the half-timbered houses in the old town of Hameln have been preserved
Quelle: Gonzalo Azumendi/Stone RF/Getty Images
But a protest movement formed against it, which stopped the renovation concept and forced federal policy reforms to building laws. The movement was led by the Hamelin restaurateur and local politician Elsa Buchwitz (1929–1997), who is now commemorated by special city tours.
It shows what was saved: medieval aristocratic walls, magnificent Weser Renaissance, narrow half-timbered streets. The restaurant founded by Buchwitz is located in one “Pancake”a winding wooden building in which excellent pancakes in many variations are served on two floors.
The path on which Hitler marched
Buchwitz was also indirectly involved in another event that had excited Hameln and German cinema-goers a few years earlier: in 1965, part of the film crew, which was around six kilometers away, stayed in the (no longer existing) “Hotel Rosenhof” run by Buchwitz The Edgar Wallace film “The Uncanny Monk” was shot in the distant Hastenbeck Castle.
Scene from the Edgar Wallace film: Gwendolin, played by Karin Dor, in the power of the sinister monk
Quelle: picture alliance/United Archives
The fact that the location was well chosen can still be seen today on guided tours that can be booked at the Hamelin tourist information center. The eerily romantic mansion from the 19th century is surrounded by an overgrown park in which mysterious-looking cars stand around and invisible dogs bark.
The horror was then made into a film with Siegfried Lowitz and Karin Dor and with the up-and-coming Dunja Rajter. Hamelin extras were also involved: in an advertisement in the local newspaper, the Rialto Film Company was looking for “young ladies,” “around 22 to 25 years old, very good-looking,” as well as “men between 30 and 40 years old, tall and well-built.”
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The Bückeberg, within sight of Hastenbeck, bears witness not to cozy horror, but to the cruelest ideology. The Nazis held the “Reichserntedankfest” there from 1933 to 1937, which was one of the largest mass events of National Socialism, with a million visitors at the end. The remains of the Hitler stand can still be seen, including the slope of the parade ground and in the middle of it the wide path on which the dictator walked up and down.
View of the Bückeberg with the “Führerweg” visible in the middle
Source: picture alliance/dpa/Julian Stratenschulte
Today there are information boards spread across the area, which explain, among other things, that not only was the exclusionary, violent kitsch of the “national community” staged there, but that preparations were also being made for the war of annihilation. At the foot of the slope, a no longer existing backdrop village had been built in which tanks drove around during the Thanksgiving celebrations, simulating what the Wehrmacht would soon do in Eastern Europe.
The Pied Piper attracts many guests to the city
The area around Hamelin had itself been devastated around 180 years earlier, during the Seven Years’ War in the Battle of Hastenbeck (1757), the consequences of which Wilhelm Raabe movingly described in his story of the same name in 1898. Raabe described the landscape as rough and filled with potato fire smoke – an assessment that can hardly be associated with this idyllic area today.
Because the Emmer valley is downright lovely, where it was magnificent at the end of the 16th century Schloss Hämelschenburg was built. It is one of the greatest examples of the Weser Renaissance. Outside, a pond dreams away, and a romantic bridge leads to a small church – the first free-standing church in the world to be newly built in Protestantism. On the way back to Hameln we recommend a stop in the village of Tündern. There, the Dutschke butcher shop offers first-class sausages.
Hämelschenburg Castle is one of the greatest examples of the Weser Renaissance
Source: Sabrina Stoeckli / Hameln Tourism
In any case, the food in the area is remarkably good and diverse. Also in Hameln itself. Because the Pied Piper attracts a good 200,000 overnight guests every year and the city is quite prosperous with its medium-sized economy, the gastronomy offers a lot: the restaurant serves ambitious dishes “Grimsehl’s Craft”smaller dishes in the café in the city museum, hearty dishes „Rattenkrug“Italian and Eastern European that „Café am Ring“ in a 1950s pavilion.
Not everything in Hamelin was successful. In the middle of the old town, the famous wedding house, built between 1610 and 1617, has been empty for years after a “Weser Renaissance adventure world” failed there in 2007. Directly opposite, the oversized Stadt-Galerie shopping arcade is struggling with retail problems and is blocking the way to the Weser. On the river itself, Hameln still has some catching up to do in terms of quality of stay.
Vintage cars in the museum of Hameln’s automobile history
Source: Hameln Vehicle History Association
Visitors will find something surprising in the Hefehof, the beautifully restored industrial monument of a former yeast factory a little away from the old town, filled with new commercial life: that’s where the heroic one is Time to visit local automobile production.
Until 1929, technically innovative cars were built in Hameln (including the first with aluminum pistons), most recently by the Selve company, which were popular with wealthier customers. They were called Colibri and Sparrowhawk, later Selve Sport and Selve Phaeton. They had up to 50 hp under the hood and drove at speeds of up to 100 kilometers per hour. Today they shine in a small private museum. That suits Hamelin. It is one of the many places where you can discover what was not expected.
Before you forget it: A rat on the pavement of the pedestrian zone points to the famous legend
Quelle: imageBROKER/Norbert Neetz/Getty Images
Tips and information:
Getting there: Hameln can be easily reached from Hanover, Hildesheim and Paderborn by regional train and therefore with the Deutschlandticket. Drivers take the A2 motorway and the federal highway 83.
Accommodation: We recommend the “Hotel zur Börse” in the middle of the old town, double rooms with breakfast from 78 euros, hotel-zur-boerse.de. The “Schlosshotel Münchhausen” is extremely comfortable ten kilometers away, double rooms from 212 euros, schlosshotel-muenchhausen.com. From tour providers on the Weser cycle path (weserradweg-info.de) Hameln is one of the standard stations; It is advisable to spend two nights in the city to have time for sightseeing.
Further information: Guided tours on many different topics within the city (with and without a Pied Piper focus) as well as numerous tips for excursions in the area can be found at hameln.de/de/tourismus.
Participation in the trip was supported by Hameln Marketing and Tourism. Our standards of transparency and journalistic independence can be found at axelspringer.com/de/werte/downloads.
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