Hamburg: A Cultural History

It is a popular misconception that Hamburg is a coastal city. Despite possessing Europe's second-busiest port, this amphibious city lies some 65 miles from the North Sea. Its longstanding image as a city without culture is also something of a myth. When the poet Heine remarked that in Hamburg "the customs are English," he was referring to its no-nonsense mercantile ethos, which dates back to the era of the Hanseatic League. Yet even in Heine's day the celebrated philistinism of the city fathers was balanced by a tradition of private: philanthropy: Hamburg has long been a city of culture as well as commerce.

Although the traumas of 20th-century German history are never far from the surface, Hamburg has become an attractive city full of color and contrast. As Germany's gateway to the world, it is a cosmopolitan city, whose culture has been shaped by those passing through as much as by those who stayed.

Jefferies explores a city-state boasting the highest per capita GDP in Germany where ostentatious displays of wealth are shunned; a city without palaces, castles, or cathedrals, yet bursting with monuments and memorials. With nearly eight million visitors each year, Hamburg is fast becoming one of Europe's most popular destinations.

City of Water & Fire: The Elbe, the Alster, and more bridges than Venice and Amsterdam combined; a city rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1842 and the Allied firestorm of July 1943

City of Brick & Neon: The warehouse district; Fritz Höger's expressionist Chilehaus; Fritz Schumacher's vision of a "liveable metropolis" the Reeperbahn and the Beatles

The World, City: Hamburg's colonial past; embarking point for millions of European migrants to the New World