Wismar: view of Market Square

The Hanseatic League

Here in little Wismar was signed in 1259 a defensive treaty with its neighbouring cities of Luebeck and Rostock against piracy in the Baltic. In time this secured their trade routes and the growth of trade and wealth of the merchants for several centuries.

By the mid seventeenth century the power balance within Europe had changed. The catastrophic Thirty Years War (1618-48) resulted in Wismar becoming a Swedish possession. The town (in conjunction with the outlying Walfisch Island) was then transformed for a brief period into the largest fortress in Europe, the defences being demolished in 1717 during the equally catastrophic Great Northern War (1700-1721).

Wismar remained a Swedish possession until 1903, when it became part of Mecklenburg. This only happened because Sweden had mortgaged the town the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg as security for a loan of 1,250,000 talers a hundred years earlier, and defaulted on the debt.


This photo

The old town of Wismar is small and delightful. This photograph was taken from the tower of St Marien, which provides a stunning viewpoint 62 metres above ground level. Only the church tower survives, the rest of this gothic church was demolished in 1960 as a result of catastrophic damage from allied bombing during World War II.

The two other major gothic brick churches in the town suffered less damage and have been fully restored in recent years.

In this photograph we are looking eastwards from the church tower.
The Market Square is in the foreground. It covers 10,000 square metres and is one of the largest in Germany. Towns of the Hanseatic League owed their vast wealth to their merchants, and needed large market places.

At the top right hand side of the square is a small ornate, colourful twelve-sided building. This is the Wasserkunst, the Water Works which supplied the whole town with drinking water. It was built in Dutch renaissance style in 1602, and continued to function until 1897.

Just behind the Wasserkunstwerk, and partly concealed by it, is the Reuterhaus. It collapsed during the post-war period and has been reconstructed in its original late barock style.

Immediately to the left of the Reuterhaus are two very different houses:

the Alter Schwede (Old Swede), the oldest surviving private house in the town, dating back to 1380, built in red brick and with a crow-stepped gable; then the intriguing

Seestern, its 1837 facade mimicking its neighbour in neo-gothic style, to which was added in 1900 the green art nouveau paintwork - a charming (if initially puzzling) combination.

All three houses are restaurants with exellent views of the Market Square and to the now freestanding tower of St Marien. For anyone who would like to know more about the histories of these houses, I have added a postscript below.


Beyond the square

No more than 100 metres behind the square and to the far left of the photo can be seen the trees of the Lime Tree Garden, built on part of the earlier Swedish fortifications. These - comprising 2 citadels, 18 bastions, and 9 ravelins, plus an island fortress - were defended by 700 canons.



Postscript: the three houses in Market Square, in more detail.

The Reuterhaus and local dialect

In this building was the publishing house of Detloff Carl Hinstorff. He had the good fortune to publish the poems and novels of Fritz Reuter (1810-1874), the very first person to write in the local dialect, Low German, or Plattdeutsch. Reuter was and still is considered a local hero.

The building has beautiful old furnishings, and bookshelves with Reuter's works, which can be inspected if you are as curious as I was.

The Alter Schwede and the Swedes' Heads

Originally a merchant's house, with accommodation below and storage for goods above. In the late 19th century it became a hotel and adopted this name, which means the Old Swede.

Outside the restaurant is one of Wismar's Schwedenkoepfe, or Swedes' Heads. These are ornate heads originally used to top mooring posts in the harbour: all are male heads with bushy moustaches and topped with lions' heads in a variety of colours. Precisely what connection these bore to the Swedes is the subject of fruitless speculation, and the suggestion that this was once fashionable headwear makes as much sense as any other.

The Seestern

Literally translated as sea star, this means starfish. I have not discovered whether the name has any particular significance; the only possible clue is a small green four-pointed star towards the top of the building's facade.

The Seestern is in the same ownership as the neighbouring Alter Schwede.