It's really cool to see an English speaker talking about Bremen to international crowd. As I live in Bremen I know most of the stories and the places but it's still fun to watch and I actually learned new things. Really good video!
Fun fact: the Bremerhaven part of the state also has its own exclave surrounded by Niedersachsen, which is separated from the rest of the city (and therefore the state) by a corridor that's 30-31 meters at its narrowest
Bremen - my hometown! I like your precise and clear style. Learned something new. Remarks: Bremerhaven is an important fishing harbor. They call themselves „Fishtown“. Their ice hockey team are the „Fishtown penguins“. Roughly half way between Bremerhaven and Bremen lies Bremen-Vegesack which is a very interesting part of the state of Bremen with its own identity. They had a whaler’s and herring fisher‘s fleet.
The ice hockey team decided to go full denglish and are called "Fischtown Pinguins", using the german spellings of fish and penguin but english town and the plural s. Fittingly, their official logo is written in comic sans. Ouch.
Nicht zu vergessen: Vegesack ist innerhalb von Bremen-Nord eine Besonderheit. Anders als der Rest gehört Vegesack nicht erst seit 1938 zu Bremen (im Austausch zu dem Verlust von Bremerhaven wurde ja Bremen-Nord eingemeindet.).
@@rogink Citizen of Bremen here - Who would drink that pisswasser that is brewed by an american company (The one that also brews the pisswasser called budweiser and promotes their beverage via a trans-clown to kids)?
13:30 "… before the railways meant travellers could easily plan to get to bremerhaven on the day they were due to set sail." Ah, those were the days, when you could plan to travel by train and yet arrive at your destination on time.
I “immigrated” to the US from Germany via Bremerhaven. I was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1958 (father was in the US Army). My family went back to the US in 1961 on a ship that departed Bremerhaven.
@@invalidavatar Because although I was born in Germany, I was born to US Citizens in a US Army hospital and did not actually immigrate to the US. I was a US Citizen at birth. I used “immigrated” because I went to the US from Germany for the first time in 1961.
concerning the random tourist attraction: Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill are very highly regarded in Germany. Most people born last century grew up on those movies
The Synchronisation is also part of it. They decided to deviate quite a bit from the source material resulting in lots and lots of absolutely famous jokes and qoutes. The german Synchro is very famous.
Finally my birthplace, the city of Bremen! After an absence of just about 30 years, I just remigrated here last september. So maybe surprisingly, although I am quite interested in local history, there was still a lot I learned from this video. I really should take some local city tours... but that feels dirty and touristy
That's not necessarily a bad thing. I occasionally go on a tour through Brussels, the city I call home since 2007. Sometimes it's good to see the city through the eyes of a visitor.
I'm from the Netherlands, and we made a school trip to Bremerhaven and Bremen (two different trips). We visited the Klimahaus and the Zoo am Meer. I don't really remember much about our trip to Bremen, except that I stroke the Bremer Stadtmusikanten for good luck, threw some money in a fountain, and had ice cream in Lloyd's passage.
I mean i like my hometown Bremen, also was on School Trip in the Klimahaus & Auswandererhaus/Emigrant house (Museum about German Immigration to Usa+) but for a its quite a scam from the Netherlands to drive there. But Schools have always so questionable destinations for Trips/School excursions like one Class goes to Berlin or Prag & the other to a little Village where is nothing, of course you still have fun there, but when others go to italy or bigger cities.😅
i was born in bremerhaven and lived here for the entirety of my life and its surreal that other people, especially from other countries, sometimes end up visiting our city.
Worth mentioning that after WWII, Bremen and Bremerhaven were actually exclaves of the American occupation zone surrounded by the British occupation zone because the American occupation zone was inland, and so the Americans wanted a supply port for the US zones of occupation in west Berlin and southern Germany. Another city with interesting geography is New York City! Like if you draw a line from the southernmost point of NYC on Staten Island to the northernmost point in The Bronx, it's around 36 miles, but if you redraw this 36-mile line towards NJ, it goes past Trenton and into Pennsylvania! Or how almost every borough of NYC is on an island except for The Bronx which is on a peninsula! Or how there is a part of Manhattan surrounded by The Bronx called Marble Hill! This is because Marble Hill was once part of Manhattan Island, but it became its own island in 1895 as the result of the Harlem Ship Canal. Then in 1914, it became attached to the Bronx as the result of the Harlem River on the north side of Marble Hill being fully diverted to the canal. The name of Marble Hill was conceived when Darius C. Crosby came up with the name in 1891 from the deposits of dolomite marble underlying it known as Inwood marble. The marble was quarried for the federal buildings in Lower Manhattan when New York was the national capital in the 1780s. But the most interesting fact about NYC geography is how the city has exclaves within New Jersey, on Ellis Island and Liberty Island! After the British took the region in 1664, NJ was founded as its own entity from the Province of NY. But this came with an unusual clause that stated it "was westward of Long Island, and Manhitas Island and bounded on the east part by the main sea, and part by Hudson's river". This clause didn't say the river's midpoint, so the border remained disputed. As early as 1804, attempts were made to resolve the status of the state line, and NYC claimed the right to regulate trade on all waters, effectively controlling NJ's ports. This was contested in the case Gibbons v. Ogden, where it was decided that the regulation of interstate commerce fell under the authority of the federal government, thus influencing competition in the newly developing steam ferry service in New York Harbor. In the 1830s, New Jersey planned to bring suit to clarify the border, but the matter was resolved with a compact between the states, ratified by Congress in 1834. This stated that the island was NY's, but the submerged land around it was NJ's. This set the boundary down the middle, but NY was still guaranteed jurisdiction of ALL waters of the Hudson, which enraged NJ. And it was between 1890 and 1934 that Ellis Island was expanded for immigration, so NJ kept on fighting until another Supreme Court case in 1998 which decided 6-3 in favor of NJ, stating that as the 1834 agreement was with the original outline of Ellis Island, the original outline of the island would be NY, while the rest of it was NJ's. Although NJ owns most of Ellis Island, the main museum and gift shop is still in NY!
I live in Grimsby which is twinned with Bremerhaven. I’ve been to Bremen, the main tea centre in Germany. Cleethorpes is twinned with Konigswinter. The Humber is the nearest point in the U.K. to the German Coast
Absolutely great summary of my hometown and its completely crazy history of two cities. Very great and enjoyable to listen to and you got to the heart of the matter. Please keep up the good work!💚
About 40km to the north of Bremerhaven, in the middle of the Wadden Sea you can find 3 tiny islands that belong to Hamburg, which is a 100km away. The 2 uninhabited islands, Nigehörn and Scharnhörn and the inhabited island of Neuwerk.
When I took part in a working group within the trilateral cooperation about the (mostly ecological) status of the Wadden Sea, we also had a representative of Hamburg. He did the surveys on those islands. Nigehoern is a man-made island, by the way, constructed when it looked like Scharhoern was going to be lost to erosion.
Hamburg used to have its own Bremerhaven- Cuxhaven for one, which it held over 500 years till 1937 de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gro%C3%9F-Hamburg-Gesetz#/media/Datei:Cuxhaven.png
Enclaves/exclaves are quite interesting! The commune of Campione d'Italia stands out in that it's an Italian enclave and exclave surrounded by Switzerland! Why is it Italian? Well in the first century BC, the Romans founded the garrison town of Campilonum to protect their territories from Helvetii invasions. In 777, Toto of Campione, a local Lombard lord, left his inheritance to the archbishopric of Milan. Ownership was transferred to the abbey of Sant’Ambrogio. In 1512, the surrounding area of Ticino was transferred from the ownership of the bishop of Como to Switzerland by Pope Julius II, as thanks for the support in the War of the Holy League. However, the abbey maintained control over what is now Campione and some territory on the western bank of Lake Lugano. When Ticino chose to become part of the Swiss Confederation in 1798, the people of Campione chose to remain part of Lombardy. In 1800, Ticino proposed exchanging Indemini for Campione. In 1814 a referendum was held, and residents opposed it. In 1848, during the wars of Italian unification, Campione petitioned Switzerland for annexation, but this was rejected due to the Swiss desire for neutrality. After Italian unification in 1861, all land west of Lake Lugano and half of the lake were given to Switzerland so that Swiss trade and transport would not have to pass through Italy. The d'Italia was added to the name of Campione in the 1930s by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and an ornamental gate to the village was built, both to assert Italian character. During World War II, the US Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA, maintained a unit in Campione for operations in Italy. At the time the Italian fascist regime did not have control over the enclave. The Swiss ignored the situation as long as the Americans kept a low profile. Campione's biggest employer is the Casinò di Campione which was originally founded in 1917 as a site to gather information from foreign diplomats during the First World War. It closed in 2019 after a bankruptcy in 2018 that led to financial distress of the municipality and dissolution of the city council that were only elected the year before, but the casino re-opened in 2022.
I'm from Bremen, I adore your work, and having you create this documentary is an honour for the city. Thank you so much. Haake Beck is really horrible though :D
Bremen has a cool "easteregg". When standing on the old marketplace you can find a manhole cover. When throwing money inside it you can hear on of the four animals from the "bremer stadtmusikanten". The money will be collected and donated to charity after a while. Also the "Böttcherstraße" that you showed while playing the bell tunes, a part of the wall moves which straight up looks like its from harry potter
What lovely memories! Thank you for this short trip back to Bremen and Bremerhaven! I used to teach French and English in companies and at the Institut français in Bremen, and I taught French at the brand-new Uni, Jacobs University, in Bremerhaven. I miss my life there, every day, but alas, it was time to come home. Nostalgia, what can I say!
And Neuwerk is part of Hamburg (so, what's the greatest distance of two locations in Hamburg? Almost 130 km!), and Helgoland lies in the district of Pinneberg near Hamburg.
Die Einheimischen trinken auch Hemelinger. Nebenbei: Bremen-Nord auch zu behandeln, wäre vermutlich zuviel gewesen. Aber auch da gibt es interessantes zu sehen.
Great video! It really is confusing living in Bremen sometimes. I live in the outskirts of Bremen (so Niedersachsen, it is locally also called "Umzu") but I was born in Bremen as there is the nearest hospital. I went to school in Niedersachsen and studied in Bremerhaven, now I work in Bremen. To make it even more confusing: Bremen Nord residents still often say they are going to Bremen if they talk about going to the city center. I never really thought much about that, but it is a relict of the times the cities Vegesack and Blumenthal were independent. And I think that changed quite recently, like 100 years ago I think. Another fun fact: the harbour in Vegesack is said to have been the oldest documented river harbour of germany.
My great-great-great-great-grandparents from Bavaria boarded their ship at Bremerhaven in 1847. Their vessel, the F.J. Wichelhausen, was named after the US Consul-General stationed at Bremen from 1796 to 1832. It was a triple-masted frigate, and their journey to Philadelphia took two months. Three grown children traveled with them, along with the oldest one's fiancee. The father of the family died in America 6 weeks later.
"Schnur" - it's also a word in modern German. Another synonym is "Faden". They mean "string". The long and narrow nature of the street makes the naming choice intuitive.
I love your video and must say that as a Bremen resident I also learned a couple of new things but I have one big contradiction and that is that the pancake ship is not a tourist attraction.
I think you did not mention the weird logic that allows you to tell where a car is from, given that they all have the "HB" registration. If "HB" is followed by two letters and three digits, the car is from the city of Bremen (not sure if this includes the port exclave, but it should). One letter followed by four digits means Bremerhaven. And then, strangely, there is Bremen-Nord with either a one-three combination or a two-two one.
Don't forget that the Americans actually offered Bremen to expand all along the River Weser up to Bremerhaven, but our Mayor at the time declined the offer because the rural areas would be "too much of a hassle to govern". Oh how that one has bitten Bremen in the backside.
@@B.Ies_T.Nduhey DAs war ja auch nicht ernst gemeint xD Stell dir das mal vor.. Uthlede, Hagen, Loxstedt, Aschwarden alles bremisch? Nein was sollen wir denn damit ;) Obwohl ich ganz einverstanden wäre, wenn Bremen seinen Speckgürtel eingemeinden oder zumindest a den Steuereinnahmen beteiligt werden könnte..
I live in Bremerhaven and its one of the poorest citys with one of the highest rates of unemployment and poverty. This is due to the harbour belonging to Bremen so they get the taxes and profit from the harbour. Also Bremen decides over Bremerhaven so they only invest in Bremen and not in Bremerhaven which is another main reason why the city is so poor. None of my former classmates wanted to stay there, they all went to other places for a better live. I also did that. This is a mayor problem because thus the well educated people who can afford to move leave Bremerhaven and the people who cant afford it have to stay. Leading to a spiral of increasing poverty. Another fun fact is that during covid Bremen had an infection rate of over 500 while Bremerhaven had 50. So people in Bremen had stricter restrictions than these in Bremerhavene. But, due to the fact that the harbour belongs to Bremen the few 100 people who live in the harbour area had to stay at home because they fall under the 500 infection rate of Bremen.
It´s the City Hall, built in the early 15th Century at the same time as the Roland Statue in front of it - and it IS the City Hall, not a Museum representing the former City Hall.
Super! Bremen and Bremerhaven are dear to my heart having spent several yrs in "Fishtown" back in the 80's. Wonderful times bar maybe the insanely cold,wet/snowy winters!
Hey there :) The weather was quite different back then, though. Speaking as someone who grew up in Bremerhaven the 1990s. In the winters, on a regular basis the ponds in citizens' park used to freeze. You could ice skate on them! Nowadays, some winters barely have snow. I'm quite happy that Rewboss showed rainy days since I remember a ton of them.
@@Skoell1983 did my driver license there since my uncle was a driving instructor living there. So, I came from somewhere else, and this was a confusing time - since I also needed to learn how to drive a car. Now, the motorcycle part was easier - I had a 50ccm krad and an 80ccm license already - 1A as it was called back in the days was more a stress relief. The only complaint my uncle had is that when I do an emergency brake, I shouldn't try a stoppie on the front wheel only in front of the inspector. I didn't. And I passed my driving test for both.
"... before the railways meant travellers could easily plan to get to Bremerhaven on the day of departure" ... After our last couple of adventures with DB we finally got smart. Not having to deal with sudden "Personalmangel and Stellwerkschaden" is worth the cost of a night in a Frankfurt airport hotel.
I like the juxtaposition of architecture in Bremen. The mixture of old, pastiche, reconstruction, and modern adds to the history of the city. Auswanderer is a wonderful name for emigrant.
Actually, it is a direct translation of the word. Latin e or ex = aus (out), Latin migrare = wandern (in the sense of "to migrate", a movement of people to a new settlement. Wandern can also mean "to hike, to roam, to ramble", but not in this context).
Haven is an old spelling of Hafen (same pronounciation), which means Harbour or Port. So Bremerhaven is literally Bremen's Harbour. Fun fact: Both Brermen and Bremerhaven use the same license plate regional code (HB), but to distinguish between the cities, Bremerhaven license plates used to have four digits at the end, while Bremen license plates only had three (in line with all German regional codes).
When you take the Amerikalinie from Bremerhaven to Berlin, you will pass Kirchlinteln (sadly the train doesn’t stop there). Near Kirchlinteln ist the village of Horst. According to the legend, this is where the journey of the Bremer Stadtmusikanten ended.
Ich bin gerade aufgewacht und habe ein neues Video von Rewboss gesehen! Mein Vater kommt übrigens von den Philippinen und hat als Seemann auf einem Frachtschiff kurz in Bremerhaven angelegt.
Excellent piece of work, Well done and thank you. Bremen is quite underrated. A cheap point of entry thanks to Ryanair for onward travel. A nice journey via train to Hamburg. Perhaps one day the sun will be out and I can enjoy a bier by the river.
I am sorry to report that the Beck's beer sold in the USA is now brewed in the USA. Munich's Loewenbraeu tried that in the 1970's and now I can't find it in either the German or terrible American version.
I'd like to start off by saying that I liked the video very much. You were very fair in your assessment, thorough with the history and made a good case for the city's appeal. I will however say that you seemed to gloss over a fundamental aspect of Bremen's identity: Bremen is poor. In fact, it has the highest poverty rate in all of Germany. So when you criticize the lack of preservation it sounds a tad mean, although I know that it is unintended. I have talked to a few people in charge of historical sites in Bremen as part of my degree in history and they all said the same thing regarding the topic of preservation: They would love to preserve and properly present each and every historical bit Bremen has to offer, especially because they desperately need the tourism, but the state simply does not have the money. They depend on private Investors stepping in and taking on the costs, which rarely happens and when it does it usually means some part of its soul is lost to make the site more profitable. The city has to balance its appeal to tourists with appealing to corporate interests and it shows. Bremen's strange bouts of supposed modernization, its frankly horrible train station and thee overall somber feeling of the city are each a visible symptom of Bremen's tragic poverty.
En route from Kyiv to Chicago in 1914, my great-grandparents, plus one great-aunt and great-uncle, boarded the _SS Emden_ from Bremerhaven. This is why my last name ends with a W. Thank you for showing me what it's like.
6:54 In the windows you can see below the statues were once fish, with one of the windows having coffein in the water, to show how it makes the fish (and also potential customers) more awake. Due to obvious reasons this is no longer the case though. 8:56 the pancake boat surprisingly isn't a cheesy tourist trap, but just a cooler restaurant, especially for families with children ;)
I am a resident of Bremerhaven and i like how accurately you represent the history of Bremen and Bremerhaven. I also like the old maps. Just one thing to correct: HanNover with double "n". I
I’ve visited Bremen. Nice city, and it’s a place I’d like to return to someday. But now I have interest in wanting to visit Bremerhaven. I have German ancestry and they immigrated to the US in the 19th century. Finding out that they most likely were in Bremerhaven before setting sail gives me the interest to visit.
4:25 At least they didn't partially enclose the town hall in a giant glass box, which is supposed to be a new shopping centre. Our city had an idea like this with a model on display. I hope the idea was abandoned.
I went to Bremerhaven on my challenge of getting from Germany's southern border to the sea in under 24 hours using the €9 ticket. Bremen and Bremerhaven are basically England and Wales.
Hey Rewboss, thanks for the video! Now that was what you filmed while you stayed in Findorff (regarding the photo in your Community tab). All the best!
Mal wieder eine schöne Reise. 🙂 Danke. Hamburg hat ja etwas ähnliches, mit ihrem tschechischen Staatsgebiet. 😉Und Altona gehörte bis zur Bildung von Großhamburg zu Preußen, war also ein Vorort von Berlin. 😁Und Hamburg wiederum besaß mal Hafenanlagen in Cuxhafen (Hamburghaven! 😂). Hätten sie behalten sollen, dann müssten die Schiffe nicht 80km elbaufwärts und wieder zurück fahren.
Ah nice, you even found the Katzencafe :D Iam from Bremen, if someone would visit us here, i would go there with them cause of the smallest street to go through ;)
Nice to see Bremerhaven get some more attention. I grew up in the area around Bremerhaven and it is quite a unique city in Germany with how it is part of the only two-city federal state. Bremerhaven is also known as having the second largest car terminal port in all of europe, with a capacity to store around 100.000 cars, the port is used by most major german car manufacturers like Audi, Porsche, VW, Mercedes, BMW to export cars, as well as asian brand like Hyundai, Kia etc. importing cars through Bremerhaven. I used to work in the car port for a while, it is quite a popular job in the area where we drive the new cars onto and off ships or on and off trains. The area is so big it almost feels like a city by itself. One of Bremerhavens landmarks is the Atlantic Hotel Sail City with a height of 147 m, it has an observation platform that you can visit by lift for a few euros to have a great view over the city, the ports, the surrounding area and the sea.
Since we're doing verschachtelte sachen, the Gymnasium Wesermünde (known as the Kreisgy) is a lower-saxon school in Bremerhaven. Quite the bus ride to school for my brother back when he went there.
Ich als Bremerhavener find es mega wie viel Aufmerksamkeit Bremerhaven durch dieses Video bekommt. Dass es sogar das Kreisgy unters Video schafft, damit hätte ich echt nicht gerechnet... 😆
