Among Hamburg’s six principal museums, the Kunsthalle, founded in 1868 by Alfred Lichtwark, an outstanding patron of artists, is one of Europe’s most remarkable galleries. It is particularly notable for its collection of 19th- and 20th-century works, including many of the German Romantic school. The Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (Museum of Art and Crafts), founded in 1877 by the jurist Justus Brinckmann, has one of the most significant collections of ancient artifacts in Germany and is also famous for its examples of Asian art and of Jugendstil (Art Nouveau). The Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte, which has grown from a collection of local antiquities started in 1839, contains a wide range of exhibits, from costumes to parts of old buildings and from architect’s drawings to models of ships, shown in such a way as to present an impressive conspectus of the state’s history. The Museum für Völkerkunde (Museum of Ethnology and Prehistory), founded in 1878, has impressive collections in its own fields. The Altonaer Museum, opened in 1863, specializes in north German subjects, with special attention to Schleswig-Holstein, and houses Germany’s largest collection of old ships’ figureheads. The Helms-Museum, in the Harburg district, is a local museum for the part of Hamburg south of the Elbe but also houses antiquities representing the prehistory and early history of the whole territory. The Ernst-Barlach-Haus, in Jenisch Park, was founded in 1961–62 by another great patron of the arts, Hermann F. Reemtsma, to make his private collection accessible to the public. Hamburg’s once famous Zoological Museum was destroyed by bombs in 1943 after a century of existence.

The Hamburg Staatsoper, which dates from 1678, has won world renown. Its performances of classical and contemporary works bear comparison with those given by the great opera houses of Vienna, Milan, London, and New York City. The Deutsche Schauspielhaus, a leading theatre, enjoyed a particularly high reputation from 1955 to 1963, when Gustaf Gründgens directed and performed there. The Thalia-Theater, founded in 1843, with a multifaceted program that includes plenty of light entertainment, is popular with local audiences. All three establishments are generously funded by the state. The numerous other theatres include the tiny Piccolo-Theater and the Hansa-Theater, said to be the last genuine variety theatre in the German-speaking world. Plays of a local character or in Plattdeutsch (Low German) are performed in the Ohnsorg-Theater and sometimes in the Sankt Pauli-Theater, which dates from 1841 and is Hamburg’s oldest playhouse.

The birthplace of Mendelssohn and Brahms, Hamburg has a sustained tradition of musical activity. Three great orchestras—the Philharmonische Staatsorchester, the Symphonie-Orchester des Norddeutschen Rundfunks, and the Hamburger Symfoniker—familiarize the public with classical and contemporary compositions. There are also groups specializing in chamber music, in choral performances, and in church music; and orchestras, choirs, singers, and instrumentalists from other parts of Germany or from abroad are also invited to Hamburg. The focal point of Hamburg’s musical life is the Neo-Baroque Musikhalle, built in 1904–08 with money donated by the shipowner Carl Laeisz.

An important aspect of Hamburg’s history is its prominence as a centre of newspaper and periodical publishing, which dates to the 17th century. By 1830 Hamburg had more newspapers than any other city in Germany. In the 1920s Berlin began its ascendancy as a press centre, and Hamburg fell into second place, which it still occupies. Its daily newspapers include the Hamburger Abendblatt, the Hamburger Morgenpost, and the Bild-Zeitung. In addition, a wide range of weekly and monthly magazines issue from the various publishing firms located in the city.

Sports have long been popular in Hamburg. The Hamburger Turnerschaft (1816) is Germany’s oldest athletic club. The first German rowing club, founded in Hamburg in 1836, took part in 1837 in Germany’s first official rowing race, against the English Rowing Club formed by members of Hamburg’s then numerous English colony. The Hamburger Rennklub, for horse racing, was founded in 1852, and the North German Derby, first run in 1869, became an annual event, as the German Derby, in 1889. Hamburg’s first public football (soccer) matches were played in 1881–82, after disputes about the rules of the game with the local Anglo-American Football Club. Another noteworthy event is the international tennis championship, which takes place every year in May.

An aspect of the city that cannot be ignored is its world-famous red-light district, centred on the Reeperbahn, where prostitution is legally permitted and kept under control by the police. Another famous Hamburg institution is the colourful Sunday-morning market held at the Fischmarkt by the harbour, where items ranging from fish to secondhand household goods are available.

Early settlement and medieval growth

Hamburg’s history begins with the Hammaburg, a moated castle of modest size, built in about ad 825 on a sandy promontory between the Alster and Elbe rivers. In 834, during the reign of the emperor Louis the Pious, the castle’s baptistery became the seat of an archbishopric, and Archbishop Ansgar made the young city of Hamburg the base of his missions to the heathens of northern Europe. Vikings burned the city in 845, and the rebuilt Hamburg was burned down again eight times in the following 300 years. By the end of the 11th century, Hamburg’s role as the spiritual metropolis of the north was over, and henceforth commerce rather than religion was to be the principal raison d’être of the city. Between 1120 and 1140 some trading businesses were installed, and the foundation of Lübeck, on the Baltic, by Adolf II, count of Holstein, further promoted the economic development of Hamburg as Lübeck’s port on the North Sea. In the autumn of 1188 a group of Hamburg entrepreneurs received from their feudal overlord, Adolph III of Schauenburg (Schaumburg), count of Holstein, a charter for the building of a new town, adjacent to the old one, with a harbour on the Alster River and with facilities for the use of the Elbe River as an outer roadstead. On May 7, 1189, the emperor Frederick I Barbarossa confirmed Count Adolph’s dispositions in a charter granting special trading rights, toll exemptions, and navigation privileges.

In the 13th century Hamburg grew steadily in both area and economic importance, owing to the development of the Hanse (an association of merchants trading in a particular area) into a widespread association of north German merchant cities, the great Hanseatic League, in which Hamburg’s role was second only to Lübeck’s. A major entrepôt for the trade between Russia and Flanders, Hamburg proceeded to safeguard the trade routes by acquiring tracts of land along the branches of the Elbe in the immediate vicinity of the town and also on the estuary farther downstream (Ritzebüttel, nucleus of the later Cuxhaven, was acquired by Hamburg in 1393). It thus came to control the use of the river and to be recognized as the protector, in the emperor’s name, of navigation on its lower course. Some political complications arose with the death, in 1459, of the last Schauenburg count of Holstein, since his princely rights in Germany passed thereafter to the royal house of Denmark, but Hamburg scarcely recognized Danish suzerainty in any but a formal way.