The backstory doesn’t look encouraging. A river port city, former stronghold of the Hanseatic League, whose shipbuilding and aircraft industry in World War II made it a priority target for Allied bombs. A city that hosted a Stasi (secret police) headquarters in GDR days and which suffers from depopulation today, following the exodus of 60,000 people after the Wall came down. But despite all that, Rostock is a cheerful surprise.

It’s a cobbled, eminently walkable place that still has a large part of its ancient city wall. It is connected to a seaside resort – Warnemunde – with a frequent, easy-use train connection. And its massive brick cathedral St Mary’s, which was started back in the 13th century, has two astonishing features.

After the devastation of World War II, the GDR rebuilt much of the city centre, some of it in uncompromisingly socialist style, particularly along the showpiece boulevard Lange Strasse. But along the parallel main pedestrianised shopping street, Kröpeliner Strasse, restoration was done sensitively, respecting bits of medieval brick gothic, baroque and more recent neo-Renaissance facades, particularly of the university building on Universitätsplatz.

The GDR also added a lot of statues and fountains, including what locals call the ‘porno fountain’ (official name the ‘fountain of joy’) also on Universitätsplatz, which along with Neuer Markt is the focus of city life. The fountain is an exuberant collection of figures, both human and animal, in various vigorous poses, including a wild boar doing situps. Its humans are naked, which inspired the nickname, but then so are huge numbers of naked statues all around the world, so to pick on this one seems a bit unnecessary. Particularly as it is a very popular cooling off spot for children during the summer months.

Street cafes here often play host to different nationalities. Rostock has ferry services to Denmark and Sweden, and Warnemunde also has a cruiseship port, so you’re likely to hear lots of different languages in town.

At the eastern end of Kröpeliner Strasse is Neuer Markt, still open on one side after the damage of World War II. The square is the location for the Rathaus, a strange combination of original brick gothic architecture peeping out above and behind the pompous pink baroque in front. Much of the surrounding square has been sensitively restored, traffic free apart from the trams, but the middle hosts another fountain, of morose sea gods dominated by a seagull on a high pole. This Möwenbrunnen (‘seagull fountain’) is not popular with locals, and was put here during post-reunification days, at a time when the city most needed something optimistic to look at.

The Cathedral

Back in medieval times this part of Germany was heavily forested, and its mostly sandy soil has little to offer in the way of stone. So six million bricks had to be fired to build St Mary’s, some of them decoratively glazed to create a checkered, even houndstooth, exterior.

At first sight its interior seems fairly sparse. But turn back to look above the entry, and you’ll see the massive decorative wooden organ loft, from 1750. The instrument here, still in use  comprises an astonishing 5,700 organ pipes, and hanging below it is the Duke of Mecklenburg’s glazed-in royal box, a bit like a very fancy basket hanging under a hot air balloon. This is where the Duke would sit to gaze out upon his subjects, and at times, with all that organ power going on, it must have felt like it was taking off.

The other big feature of the cathedral is tucked away behind the nave. This 15th century astronomical clock is just as special as its much more famous cousin in Prague, and what it lacks in moving showtime figurines, it makes up for in complexity, ingenuity and authenticity, because whilst Prague is now electrically powered, the clockwork here is the original, and still needs to be wound up every day.

It is also far more intimate, being mostly right at eye level. Besides telling the time, the date, and having moving apostles every hour, its intricacies detail things like the phase of the moon, the state of the harvest, and the actual timings of sunrise and sunset in Rostock, every day of the year. How it survived the war is something of a miracle.

https://www.hanse.org/en/tourist/rostock

Following the collapse of East Germany’s German Democratic Republic 30 years ago, a number of towns and cities emerged as hitherto undiscovered. Because of their remoter location they were largely undamaged by wartime bombing and their architectural splendour survived the worst of the GDR town planning.

Among such towns are Görlitz, profiled elsewhere on this site, and Schwerin, 20 miles south of Wismar and inland from the Baltic coast.

Once the historic seat of the Dukes of Mecklenburg, Schwerin, with a population just under 100,000, had always played second fiddle to its larger industrial neighbour Rostock, particularly during the days of the GDR. Rostock, as a state-supported shipbuilding city, was much more in keeping with the image the country wanted to present.

However once the reunification of Germany was completed and the Land of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was re-established, the decision was made to restore Schwerin to its rightful place as the state capital. As an endorsement of that decision, the island-based castle and its associated buildings were made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2024.

Neuschwanstein of the north

The jewel in the architecture of the city, Schwerin castle became the seat of the parliament of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In the 19^th century the water-surrounded building had been the ducal residence but in 1918, the duchy ceased to exist and the castle became the property of the state.

A castle has stood on the Schwerin island since the latter years of the first millennium. The town was an important location in the medieval quest to extend eastwards along the Baltic coast. Accordingly, those earlier buildings on the island were more militaristic, but in more peaceful and prosperous recent history the emphasis changed.

Accordingly, when the current castle was built in the mid 19^th century by a group of architects including Gottfried Semper (who was responsible for building the Semper Oper in Dresden) they created one of the finest Renaissance buildings in northern Germany. It has been dubbed the Neuschwanstein of the north. In scale and in beauty it is the equal of any Loire Valley chateau, having also been partly modelled on Chambord.

The museum section of the castle can be visited daily all year round (closed Mondays) and there are also guided tours of the parliament section, on request. Alternatively you can wander through the castle gardens, one of the finest gardens to mix baroque with classical English design.

Undoubtedly the best way to appreciate views of the castle is on a trip boat on the Schweriner See, the third largest lake in Germany. These trips run from March until October and start from the pier by the castle, and besides castle views, they reveal a boathouse-dwelling culture that is unique to Mecklenburg.

Schwerin itself is a town of two halves. Close to the castle island, it is a historic and administrative centre, with state government ministries in a variety of imposing baroque and neoclassical buildings.  It has a more modern, shopping and eating quarter nearby, and a lot of its population (still not quite as numerous as in GDR days) are retirees from elsewhere in Germany, attracted by lakeside living in new luxury waterside apartments, and Schwerin’s peace and quiet.

Arriving here on a weekday night is like stepping back 50 years, to the days when it was still called Karl-Marx-Stadt. The wide streets are walled by looming brutalist blocks, and they seem practically devoid of life.  There’s a metaphorical chill in the air.

But it wasn’t always thus. This crucible of Germany’s industrial revolution kicked off in the 19^th century with textiles and then machine-making, and moved on to producing the likes of trains and cars, the bread and butter of modern Germany. But then came World War II, which destroyed 80 percent of a thriving industrial city.

Virtually the only showpiece of that most prosperous pre-war era which is still used for its original purpose is the magnificent Bauhaus-influenced public swimming pool, unchanged since the glory period of the 1930s. And then there’s Villa Esche, the art deco mansion of a stocking manufacturer from the beginning of the 20^th century.

After the War, the GDR did a hasty rebuild and tried to make Chemnitz a socialist showpiece and a powerhouse of mechanical engineering. They re-named it Karl-Marx-Stadt and installed the giant head of Marx himself on a wide boulevard intended for grand parades. The 40 tonne bust is still there, despite the fact that the man himself never set foot in the city. And when the Berlin Wall came down, three quarters of the population voted to go back to the original name, ‘Chemnitz’.

A lot of them also left at the first opportunity, largely because all that government-run industry was based on outdated technology, and accordingly went belly up as the Wall came down. At that point there was a mass exodus of 80,000 mostly well educated citizens, and the 260,000 who remained felt overlooked and unloved. Unsurprisingly, the right wing AfD Alternative for Germany is strong here.

Capital of Culture

In an attempt to bring the city in from the cold it was designated as one of two European Capitals of Culture in 2025. Special exhibitions, installations and events brought in a lot of interested visitors, and have restored some of the citizens’ self respect. The heart of downtown around the Old and New Town Halls embodies something of the pre-war era, albeit as a reconstruction, surrounded by a bit of a dogs dinner of modernist styles. But beyond that Chemnitz remains indisputably a physically unappealing place, thrown together in too much of a hurry after World War II by a regime that cared little for flair and individualism.

Today one thing that Chemnitz does have, in spades, is museums, converted from former industrial complexes. For example the Industrial Museum in a magnificently restored former foundry where it shows a copious cross-section of two centuries of manufacturing output.

There are galleries, too, particularly the Gunzenhauser, in a former bank, which is particularly good at researching and exhibiting artists from this part of Germany, and from other destinations in central and eastern Europe.

For someone interested in Germany in general, and in its recent history, Chemnitz is worth a visit.  It is certainly a journey of discovery. And a big blast from the past.

Everyone has heard of Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, the former crossing point between the American sector in the West and the Soviet sector in the East. But how did it get that name?

The answer lies 120 miles to the west, at the former border crossing between Helmstedt in former West Germany (FRG) and Marienborn in former East Germany (GDR), once known as Checkpoint Alpha.

To complete the lexicon of the day, in between the two was Checkpoint Bravo on the outskirts of the city where traffic that had passed through Alpha and East Germany entered West Berlin (which was surrounded at the time). So the naming was as simple as ABC.

The GDR government began erecting the fortifications at Checkpoint Alpha in the mid 1950s, several years before the Berlin Wall was built, to make crossing from East to West as difficult as possible.

Whilst the crossing was marked by a modest building on the Helmstedt (western) side of the border, the operation was of a much greater size in Marienborn over in the east. Over the years, particularly in the 1970s when much greater cross-border traffic was permitted, it evolved into a large complex that housed up to 1,000 guards, police, security officials and other personnel (including Stasi officers) until it was dismantled following reunification of the two countries in 1990. The entire site has been designated a monument of national heritage, and is now the largest existing memorial to the internal border.

A huge operation

Adding to the overall sense of intimidation, alongside the East German security apparatus the Soviet Red Army had a base in Marienborn, whose sole purpose was to accompany Allied (US, British or French) traffic passing through it en route to West Berlin. The process of crossing the border could take hours with cars often secretly XRayed or even taken apart during examination by extremely thorough and officious guards. It was never a pleasant experience.

Not all the original buildings remain but there are sufficient to get a feel for the size of the security operation. The installations on the western side have been demolished but on the eastern side the passport control point for cars, the checkpoint for lorries, the light masts (the whole site was illuminated in the dark), the administration offices, the watchtower and even the morgue are still there.

These have now been turned into a museum about the former border, entry to which is free.  Within the Passport control office there is a permanent exhibition charting in chronological order the development of the fortifications at the site and the story of the border in general. There are also a variety of other exhibitions detailing how the checkpoint worked and the methods taken by the GDR to prevent illicit border crossings. There is a display of artefacts from the time including the guns used by the guards.

The whole site can be walked freely (though the inside of some buildings are inaccessible) and gives an indication of the efforts the GDR went to in order to restrict the movements of its citizens. It is a perfect monument to that country’s attempts to control and intimidate its captive population. – Mark Arrol