Hammelwarden Cemetery During the construction of the church Friedrichskirche in the 18th century, the Duchy Oldenburg belonged to the Kingdom of Denmark. Accordingly, it was named after the Regent Friedrich V. (1723-1766). This very location was at the heart of the flourishing of the maritime wealth of the region. Inside the church, there is a ship´s model of the in Elsfleth based barque "Aeolus". The vessel war built in 1872 in the nearby Eylers-Werft in Hammelwarden. Additionally, the cemetery is dotted with numerous tombstones which attest to the maritime history of the region and its residents. Notable among them is the gravesite of Rear Admiral Carl-Rudolph Bromme, known as Brommy, the Commander of Germany´s first Imperial Naval Fleet. The lyricist and honorary citizen of Brake, Georg von der Vring, also has his last place of rest here. [More]
Wempe Gerhard Diedrich Wempe opened a shop in the street Steinstraße in Elsfleth on the 5th of May 1878. Thereby, the clockmaker Wempe, who was barely 21 years old, laid the foundation for an enterprise which now has its central domicile in Hamburg, four generations later. Moreover, Wempe has offices in such prime locations as London, Paris, New York and Peking. Particularly in the shipping industry, the production of very precise timing devices, so-called chronometers, was a most significant part of the business. These were utilized to acquire an accurate determination of the ship´s position at sea- Today, these instruments are eagerly desired by collectors. The Maritime Museum “Haus Elsfleth” also has additional information pertaining to the history of Wempe and the importance of chronometers for navigation at sea. [More]
Maritime College In Elsfleth, the shipowners pressed and persuaded the Grand Duke of Oldenburg to establish a school for maritime navigation. Successfully. On the 20th of August 1832, the Grand Duke Paul-Friedrich-August founded the desired facility. Up until then, the training of prospective maritime officers had neither been binding nor uniform. Former captains and maritime pilots instructed on a private basis, the students paid tuition. In 1943, the war forced the closing of the facility. It was reopened three years later. In 1961, the school building was erected in the street Weserstraße. In 2001, the modern simulator house was opened along the pier, the Maritime Campus followed in 2009. Today, the Maritime Transportation Faculty of the Jade School of Applied Sciences is the largest of its kind in Western Europe. [More]
Oltmanns The oldest shipyard in Brake was founded by the ship´s carpenter Hinrich Oltmanns in 1791. Up until its bankruptcy in 1901, some 143 wooden sailing ships were launched here, including galiotes, schooners, brigs, barques, fully-rigged ships and Weser barges. The shipyard was also well-known outside of the region, given the high quality of services, particularly in the construction of fast vessels. Accordingly, orders were placed by customers located beyond the Weser coastline, such as Hamburg and the Netherlands. Following the death of Ide Oltmanns senior in 1856, his widow Anna Rebecka steered the company for nearly 30 additional years. The villa of the Family Oltmanns, built in 1861, is a so-called “Helgenbaas-House” and has been maintained practically unchanged until today. [More]
Ship Chandlery The Family Arnold has been operating its ship chandlery here in this location since 1884. In such a place of business, the residents of Brake as well as the crew members of the sailing ships laying over in the harbor were able to purchase everything they needed for their personal use, including colonial goods such as cocoa, coffee and tobacco. Above all, however, the assortment encompassed equipment required in the work onboard, such as buckets, cordage and blocks as well as lamps and oil. A good supplier of ships had to be capable of delivering provisions for 100 daily rations per crew member of a large tall ship within a single day. Today, the Hillrich Arnold GmbH is engaged not only in the shipchandlery, but also in trading mineral oil, and it owns a bunker vessel involved in underway operations. [More]
Hunte Flood Barrage This flood barrier is located where the Hunte flows into the Weser. Having four powerful flood gates and a breadth of some 120 meters, it protects the hinterland against storm tides. The facility began operating on the 1st of October 1979 and was one of the largest coastal protection facilities of this type at the time. Each direction of travel has ist own gate which has a breadth of 26 meters, and the two-part miter gates remain open as long as possible in order not to disrupt the shipping. The flood barrage will be closed only when the Weser rises to a water level of three meters above normal. On a daily basis, always at the top of the hour, the nearly vertical rolling lift bascule bridges are lowered in order to allow pedestrians and cyclists to reach the peninsula Elsflether Sand. [More]
Harbor Crane The gantry slewing crane, utilized for the loading and discharging of ships along the pier, was built in 1985 by the Krupp-Ardelt GmbH in Wilhelmshaven. It has a load capacity of 5,000 kg, its boom is 25 meters long.The last operator of the crane was a company based in Nordham. After this company relocated its domicile, Horst Werner, captain and ship owner from Elsfleth, acquired the crane with the aim of maintaining it as an industrial monument. In 2012, Lower Saxony´s Office for the Preservation of Monuments recognized the economic, historic and technical significance of the object and listed it officially as a cultural monument. [More]
Maritime Museum - Haus Elsfleth In 1890, the physician and health official Dr. Christian Ludwig Steenken (1857-1933) commissioned the construction of this Villa. Steenken was closely interconnected with the maritime economy. Indeed, Steenken was a bank director and the head of a maritime shipping line. Additionally, he was the president of the Elsfleth Herring Fishing Society and of the Elsfleth Ship and Shippers´ Society “Concordia”, predecessor of the Nautical Union of Lower Saxony. In 2005, Horst Werner, captain and ship owner from Elsfleth, purchased the beautiful landmark structure, a prime example of the Oldenburg gabled house. He donated it to the “Wesermarsch Civic Trust” with the requirement that it serve as a museum. Since 2010, the “Villa Steenken” is one of the three locations of the Maritime Museum of the Oldenburgian Lower Weser. [More]
Weser Customs in Elsfleth Amidst the confusion of the Thirty Years War, Duke Anton Günther von Oldenburg (1583-1661) achieved the impossible: He established a customs office along the Lower Weser. Indeed, in the Peace Traty of Westphalia in 1648, the Weser Customs Office was confirmed. Much to the dismay of, above all, the Hanseatic City of Bremen, each ship which navigated in either direction along the Lower Weser was required to pay a transit fee. As a result, Oldenburg benefitted from impressive revenues until 1856. The first customs station was located in Brake-Harrien, it was established in 1624 in the current City Hall of Elsfleth. At this site, a model of the old customs station of Elsfleth and of the city center can been viewed. Further information is available in the Maritime Museum “Haus Elsfleth”. [More]
Brommy's Villa Nothing more than a simple stone reminds us of the former business and residential house of the entrepreneur, shipyard owner and restaurant owner Gerhard Gross. In this very location, he and his family housed Carl Rudolph Bromme, better known as “Brommy”. Brommy was, as of 1849, a rear admiral and the commander of the German military fleet. The fleet headquarters were located in Bremerhaven; the city of Brake served as an additional base and as a winter berth, although the fleet was disbanded in 1852. In the same year, Brommy married Caroline, the daughter of Gerhard Gross. Caroline´s brother Karl, who served under Brommy as a midshipman, founded a merchant shipping line in 1876 and a company which is now an international logistics enterprise domiciled in Bremen. As of 1881, Karl was a member and, as of 1896, the president of the State Parliament of Oldenburg. [More]