Holstentor
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- The gate stands on an artificial mound about seven metres high, and its south tower was already sinking into the marshy ground while the builders were still at work.
- The other Holsten gates fell one by one: the second outer gate in 1808, the inner gate in 1828 and the outer gate in 1853.
- Lübeck's famous marzipan maker Niederegger has used the Holstentor as its logo since 1901.
- Andy Warhol painted the Holstentor in 1980, as one of his pop-art prints in pink tones.
- The gate appeared on West German postage stamps in 1948 and 2000, and its field side was engraved on the 50-mark banknote from 1960 to 1991.
- In 1934 the Nazis turned the gate into a propaganda hall of fame and set a swastika into the building, which disappeared during the 2005 restoration.
- The museum inside displays what is said to be the oldest surviving ship in a bottle, a three-masted warship made by Georg Biondi in 1784.
- Each tower holds three gun chambers on each of its lower floors, with loopholes for hand weapons on the floor above.
- When the museum was modernised in 2002, its long-standing torture chamber display was removed.
- The restoration of 2005 and 2006 cost about one million euros, nearly half of it covered by heritage foundations.
Why it is worth it
Two squat round towers with conical caps, a stepped gable between them and a single arch at their feet: the Holstentor is the image of Lübeck, and for a long time of the Hanseatic League itself. It was built between 1464 and 1478 by the city architect Hinrich Helmstede, funded by a councilman's legacy, as the middle of what eventually became four successive gates on the western road towards Holstein. It is the only one left, and one of just two surviving gates of the medieval city, which is listed by UNESCO together with the old town.
The gate shows two faces. The city side is flat, generous with windows and bears the inscription SPQL, a Lübeck version of Rome's SPQR added in 1871. The field side, facing a potential enemy, is almost blind: the towers bulge out as half-cylinders, the walls are about 3.5 metres thick against less than one on the town side, and they are pierced by gun ports and slits for small arms. Above the arch, the inscription "concordia domi foris pax", harmony within, peace outside, abbreviates a motto from a vanished Renaissance foregate. Two bands of terracotta tiles run round the building, patterned with lilies, thistle leaves and lattice, broken at intervals by shields carrying the Lübeck eagle.
The Holstentor was built on marshy ground and began to lean while it was still under construction. By the nineteenth century it had sunk so far that the lowest gun chambers lay below the pavement; the other gates had been pulled down for the railway, and in 1863 the citizens voted to keep this one by a majority of a single vote. Restorations in 1865–1871 and 1933–1934, with concrete anchors and iron rings round the towers, finally stabilised it. Today it houses a museum of the city's history, and it has appeared on the 50-mark note and a German two-euro coin. In front of it lie two cast-iron lions from 1823, attributed to Christian Daniel Rauch, one asleep and one keeping watch.
Getting there
The gate stands at the western edge of Lübeck's old town, about 0.6 km from the centre, on the main road between the railway station and the old town. Lübeck Airport (LBC) is about 7 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Holsten Gate is a city gate marking off the western boundary of the old center of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck. Built in 1464, the Brick Gothic construction is one of the relics of Lübeck's medieval city fortifications and one of two remaining city gates, the other being the Citadel Gate (Burgtor). Known for its two-round towers and arched entrance, it is regarded today as a symbol of the city. Together with the old city centre (Altstadt) of Lübeck it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.
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