Blankenese - History

Blankenese was a small fishing village, perched on a south facing hill side (relatively steep and high, for the Northern German plains) over-looking the river Elbe. Its history, going back as much as 1000 years, has always been closely connected to the sea, through either fishing or later trading with sailing vessels.

Early records describe how a castle was built on the Süllberg almost 1000 years ago, although this was destroyed a short while later by the Hamburgers, defending their sailing and trading rights along the Elbe. It is suspected, that even at this time there was a ferry connection from the Süllberg banks across the Elbe to the River Este and certainly during the peak of the Hanse League (1350 - 1650) there was a regular cross river ferry service.

Blankenese was first mentioned officially in 1301, but initially had a very small population. Apart from the ferry business, most of the sparse population were reported as being involved in fishing in the Elbe. The ferry at that time transported mainly people and goods, although later from about 1500 the ferries seemed to concentrate on the cattle transport. This lasted over 100 years, during which there were up to four special vessels built just for the cattle transport business. The 30 year war (1618-1648) virtually destroyed this business.

During the 1500's Hamburg and Blankenese fishermen had a long running battle for fishing rights, even after an agreement was reached, there were many skirmishes between the two groups. When Schleswig-Holstein went across to Denmark (see the Hamburg History pages), the Danish King took up the side of the Blankenese fishermen against the Hamburgers, which is why one suspects those days are still looked upon with some pleasure by Blankenese locals.

In 1670, it is reported that Blankenese owned and operated some 45 ships, whilst Hamburg had 30 and Altona 18!

Over the 1700's the deep sea fishing fleet of Blankenese grew rapidly until by the year 1806 there were some 170 ships. In this period the Blankenese Pilots (Lotsen) were taken into the Övelgönner and Neumühlen Pilots Brotherhood, which helped them to overcome the resistance that had previous arisen from the Hamburger and Helgoländer Pilots. Soon afterwards, commercial merchant shipping started in earnest in both North and Baltic Seas. (To this day, it is said that some home coming merchantmen sound their fog horns when passing Blankenese: maybe it is just the pilot saying he is going to be late home for tea or the captain saying he is almost home?)

At the beginning of the 1800s, the first Hamburg merchant (Peter Godefroy) purchased land in Blankenese and laid out the later Baurs Park in "English" style.

With more European wars, the fishing industry began to decline and the ships were used increasingly for freight transportation. After a number of large scale fires, which destroyed 50-60 houses, a number of Altona and Hamburg merchants began to build classically styled mansions along side the Elbe in the area around and leading to the old Blankenese fishing village. (A trip along the Elbchausee, from Altona to Blankenese, will show what I mean .)

In 1837, Peter Hansen bought the Süllberg and built the now well known tower there.

From 1830 onwards, the freight schooner fleet grew bigger and the vessels more seaworthy. The destinations were further afield including around Cape Horn and Latin America!  Also a small fleet of steamers began to ply regularly between Hamburg, Blankenese, Cranz, Estebrügge and Buxtehude. By the 1850s, the Blankenese fleet had a total crew list of over 1500 men, such that almost all the male population of working age were either fishermen or seamen. The merchant fleet reached its high point in 1876, with 112 ships totalling 20,000 registered tons.

In 1867, the railway line from Altona to Blankenese was opened and extended westwards to Wedel in 1883. As the merchant shipping world began to convert to steam, new ships were now only registered in Hamburg and the importance of the Blankenese fleet quickly began to decline until the last sailing merchantman was sold in 1902.

In 1918, Blankenese joined together with the two neighbouring villages of Dockenhuden and Mühlenberg and was then dragged kicking into the Altona area. Which meant that with the Großhamburger Law of 1st April 1937 (they did not see the joke! ;-), the whole area became officially part of Hamburg (did I hear a boooo! from somewhere down in the Treppenviertel?).

Most of the modern Blankenese sailors are sports sailors belonging to one or other of the local sailing clubs - the Blankenese Sailing Club (BSC) was founded in 1898 and later the Mühlenberger Sailing Club (MSC) in 1961. But nevertheless, the old traditions are kept alive; real Blankenese is still inextricably connected with the sea.

These days to get to Blankenese from Hamburg, one often has to drive through many areas that are locally referred to as "Villenviertel" (areas of villas), which are not exactly poor or downtrodden - in fact, quite the opposite! For many people, Blankenese is also such an area: in fact one of the top addresses in Germany!  Hamburg, in total, houses many millionaires and quite a few apparently live in the direction of Blankenese. Nevertheless, despite having wealthy neighbours, Blankenese, itself retains it's original quality of sea-going "normality." This point will be made very forcibly by any of the original locals, you may happen to meet, picking their way nimbly through the narrow ways of Blankenese.