What to See in Hamburg - Top Sights and Attractions

Museum in Hamburg, Germany. The Hamburger Kunsthalle is the art museum of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Germany. It is one of the largest art museums in the country. The museum consists of three connected buildings, dating from 1869, 1921 and 1997, located in the Altstadt district between the Hauptbahnhof and the two Alster lakes.

The name Kunsthalle indicates the museum's history as an 'art hall' when it was founded in 1850. Today, the museum houses one of the few art collections in Germany that cover seven centuries of European art, from the Middle Ages to the present day. The Kunsthalle's permanent collections focus on North German painting of the 14th century, paintings by Dutch, Flemish and Italian artists of the 16th and 17th centuries, French and German drawings and paintings of the 19th century, and international modern and contemporary art.^[1]

Nazi concentration camp in Germany. Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, the Neuengamme camp became the largest concentration camp in Northwest Germany. Over 100,000 prisoners came through Neuengamme and its subcamps, 24 of which were for women. The verified death toll is 42,900: 14,000 in the main camp, 12,800 in the subcamps, and 16,100 in the death marches and bombings during the final weeks of World War II. Following Germany's defeat in 1945, the British Army used the site as an internment camp for SS and other Nazi officials. In 1948, the British transferred the land to the Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg, which summarily demolished the camp's wooden barracks and built in its stead a prison cell block, converting the former concentration camp site into two state prisons operated by the Hamburg authorities from 1950 to 2004. Following protests by various groups of survivors and allies, the site now serves as a memorial. It is situated 15 km southeast of the centre of Hamburg.^[4]

Lutheran church with a landmark tower. St. Michael's Church, colloquially called Michel, is one of Hamburg's five Lutheran main churches and one of the most famous churches in the city. St. Michaelis is a landmark of the city and it is considered to be one of the finest Hanseatic Protestant baroque churches. The church was purposely built Protestant unlike many other Hamburg churches which were originally built by Roman Catholics and were converted to Protestantism during the Reformation. It is dedicated to the Archangel Michael. A large bronze statue, standing above the portal of the church shows the archangel conquering the devil.

The 132-meter high Baroque spire totally covered with copper is a prominent feature of Hamburg's skyline and has always been a landfall mark for ships sailing up the river Elbe.^[5]

WWII memorial with a viewing tower. The Church of St. Nicholas was a Gothic Revival cathedral that was formerly one of the five Lutheran Hauptkirchen in the city of Hamburg, Germany. The original chapel, a wooden building, was completed in 1195. It was replaced by a brick church in the 14th century, which was eventually destroyed by fire in 1842. The church was completely rebuilt by 1874, and was the tallest building in the world from 1874 to 1876. It was designed by the English architect George Gilbert Scott.

The bombing of Hamburg in World War II destroyed the bulk of the church. The removal of the rubble left only its crypt, its site and tall-spired tower, largely hollow save for a large set of bells. These ruins continue to serve as a memorial and an important architectural landmark. When Hamburg residents mention the Nikolaikirche, it is generally to this church that they are referring, and not the new Hauptkirche dedicated to Saint Nicholas in the Harvestehude district. The remains of the old church are the second-tallest structure in Hamburg. In 2005, an elevator was installed to a 75.3-metre-high (247 ft) platform.^[13]

Modern concert hall atop old warehouse. The Elbphilharmonie, popularly nicknamed Elphi, is a concert hall in the HafenCity quarter of Hamburg, Germany, on the Grasbrook peninsula of the Elbe River. It is among the largest in the world.

The new glassy construction resembles a hoisted sail, water wave, iceberg or quartz crystal resting on top of an old brick warehouse (Kaispeicher A, built in 1963) near the historical Speicherstadt. The project is the result of a private initiative by the architect and real estate developer Alexander Gérard and his wife Jana Marko, an art historian, who commissioned the original design by the Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, who developed and promoted the project (since 2003 in cooperation with the Hamburg-based real estate developer and investor Dieter Becken) for 3.5 years until the City of Hamburg decided to develop the project by itself. It is the key project of the new Hafencity development and the tallest inhabited building in Hamburg, with a final height of 108 metres (354 ft).

The Elbphilharmonie was officially inaugurated with concerts of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and a light show on 11 January 2017.^[18]

Vast model railway with guided tours. Miniatur Wunderland is a model railway, miniature airport, city and many other scenes attraction in Hamburg, Germany, the largest of its kind in the world. The railway is located in the historic Speicherstadt neighbourhood of the city.

In December 2021 the railway consisted of 16,138 m (52,946 ft) of track in H0 scale, divided into nine sections: Harz mountains, the fictitious town of Knuffingen, the Alps and Austria, Hamburg, America, Scandinavia, Switzerland, a replica of Hamburg Airport, Italy and South America. Of the 7,000 m2 (75,347 sq ft) of floorspace, the model occupies 1,545 m2 (16,630 sq ft).

The exhibit includes 1,300 trains made up of over 10,000 carriages, over 100,000 vehicles, approx. 500,000 lights, 130,000 trees, and 400,000 human figurines. Planning is also in progress for the construction of sections for Central America and the Caribbean, Asia, England, Africa and The Netherlands.^[19]

The Fanny & Felix Mendelssohn Museum is a museum in the Composers Quarter in the Neustadt district of Hamburg, Germany. It is dedicated to the classical composers and siblings Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn. It opened on 29 May 2018.

The museum focuses on their lives, including their childhood and the circumstances in which people of Jewish descent lived and worked within the German culture of the time. In her lifetime, Fanny (1805–1847) wrote the compositions to more than four hundred songs. Felix (1809–1847) was younger than her, and had composed since he was an adolescent. Their mother taught them to play the piano in their early years, but composers including Ludwig Berger, Marie Bigot and Carl Friedrich Zelter later took over the role. The siblings also inspired each other.

In the center, a forte piano symbolizes making music, to which Fanny and Felix were dedicated throughout their lives. Multimedia techniques are used, which enable visitors to go into detail on certain subjects. Visitors can learn how the siblings composed their work and listen to their music. On passing by detection devices audio recordings are activated. The museum opted for a scientifically justified presentation. The musicologist Beatrix Borchard was involved in the planning of the museum.

Construction work delayed the opening by a year. When the museum was opened, the second construction phase had not yet been fully completed. At that time the audio points, touch pads and several display cabinets were still not ready. The limited existence of original pieces was attended to when the museum was fitted out.^[22]

Tower in Hamburg, Germany. The Heinrich Hertz Tower is a landmark radio telecommunication tower in the city of Hamburg, Germany.

Designed by architect Fritz Trautwein, in co-operation with civil engineers Jörg Schlaich, Rudolf Bergermann and Fritz Leonhardt, the tower was built between 1965–1968 for the former Deutsche Bundespost (German Federal Post and Telecommunications Agency, now Deutsche Telekom's subsidiary Deutsche Funkturm GmbH) near Planten un Blomen park.

With an overall height of 279.2 m (916 ft) it is Hamburg's tallest structure, consisting of a 204 m (670 ft) steel-reinforced concrete lower section topped by a 45 m (148 ft) steel-lattice tower and a three-segmented cylinder of about 30 m (98 ft), which supports various antennas. There are eight concentric platforms stacked one above the other: starting at 128 m (420 ft) with the two-story observation (lower floor) and restaurant (upper floor) platform, served by two high-speed elevators. Above that at 150 m (492 ft) is the operations platform housing the workforce and equipment, and further up six differentially sized, smaller open platforms in same distances, populated with high-gain directional microwave radio relay antennas ("parabolic mirrors"). Number nine was added at 25 m height in July 2005.

After the observation platform and restaurant were closed due to asbestos decontamination, former stuntman Jochen Schweizer had a bungee jumping base installed. The restaurant will not open again due to new fire escape regulations, and the bungee platform was closed at the end of 2001.

The tower has been home to the VFDB Hamburg section's radio amateur club station "DF0HHT". It also housed a DGPS transmitting station serving the city of Hamburg's Surveying Agency.

The tower is named after the Hamburg-born German physicist Heinrich Hertz. A memorial plaque in his honour on the tower's wall reads: "Heinrich Hertz – Dem Sohn der Stadt Hamburg" ("Heinrich Hertz - Son of the City of Hamburg").^[27]

Museum in Hamburg, Germany. The Archäologisches Museum Hamburg is an archaeological museum in the Harburg borough of Hamburg, Germany. It houses the archaeological finds of the city of Hamburg and the neighbouring counties to the south of the city. It focuses on northern German prehistory and early history as well as the history of the former city of Harburg. The museum is also home to the cultural heritage landmarks commission of the city of Hamburg and the adjacent district of Harburg in Lower-Saxony and thus supervises all archaeological undertakings in the region.

The museum has two major exhibition spaces. The future City Museum of Harburg, temporary exhibitions, the library, offices and small storage facilities are located in the main building, which is shared with the Harburger Theater at Museumsplatz 2. The permanent archaeological exhibition and education facilities are located nearby, at Harburger Rathausplatz 5. In addition, the Museum maintains as external branches the exhibition area of the 12th-century Bischofsturm (Bishop's Tower) in Hamburg's old town, the Fischbeker Heide archaeological trail at Neugraben-Fischbek and the 8th-century hillfort of Hollenstedt.^[30]

Museum in Hamburg, Germany. BallinStadt is the name given to a memorial park and former emigration station in the Port of Hamburg, Germany.

From the 1850s to the early 1930s the ground's emigration halls were last homestead for some five million emigrants from various parts of Europe, waiting for their departure to the Americas. The BallinStadt museum was opened in 2007 and named after Albert Ballin (1857–1918), then director General of the Hamburg America Line. The site is also marketed as the "Emigration Museum" or "Port of Dreams".

Originally built in 1901, the site's Swiss chalet style quarters provided shelter, lodging and/or entertainment for the emigrants. In 1934 the station was closed and demolished by the Nazis, but rebuilt true to original in the early 2000s. Today, the emigration halls (German: Auswandererhallen) accommodate an exhibition related to the emigrants, their living conditions and experiences during their journeys to and from Hamburg.

The city of Hamburg decided to build the BallinStadt emigration world in December 2004, based on an overall concept developed by the Hamburg Maritim Foundation.^[33]

Museum in Hamburg. Dialogue in the Dark is an awareness raising exhibition and franchise, as well as a social business. In Dialogue in the Dark, blind guides lead visitors in small groups through different settings in absolute darkness. Through this visitors learn how to interact without sight by using their other senses, as well as experience what it is like to be blind. The exhibition is organized as a social franchising company, which offers the exhibition as well as business workshops, and has created jobs for the blind, disabled, and disadvantaged worldwide. The exhibition aims to change mindsets on disability and diversity, and increase tolerance for “otherness”. More than 9 million visitors have gone through an experience in the Dark and thousands of blind guides and facilitators find employment through exhibitions and workshops.^[34]

Museum in Hamburg, Germany. The Telemann Museum is a museum in the Composers Quarter in Hamburg-Neustadt, Germany. It was founded in 2011 and is dedicated to the classical composer Georg Philipp Telemann.

The museum is situated in an historical building in the Peterstraße, where Telemann lived and worked from 1721 until his death in 1767. The presentation highlights his personality, including his passion for his botanic garden, and the significance he had musically and culturally in his era.

A great deal of the musical attention is spent to his compositions for the civilians and of church music. The museum houses old archives and maintains an extensive library of books that center around the history of music and culture of the 18th century. The exposition shows first issues and a number of utensils, like an original spinet from 1730 of the builder Thomas Hitchcock. This instrument is used during music performances in the museum.^[35]