Holstentor - The Holsten Gate Today

The Holsten Gate Today

In 1950 the Holsten Gate again served as a museum, this time for municipal history. Relics from historic Lübeck were presented, the development of medieval Lübeck was shown using models and pictures, and models of the ships of the Hanseatic League and the flagship “Eagle of Lübeck” were exhibited. The features of this museum were also not historically accurate. For example, the museum also included a torture chamber with a dungeon, a rack and other torture devices. But the Holsten Gate had never contained anything like that.

The two monumental iron statues of reclining lions placed in an area in front of the Holsten Gate designed by Harry Maasz date from 1823 and are unsigned They are attributed to Christian Daniel Rauch and may possibly have been made with the collaboration of a member of Rauch’s workshop, Th. Kalide (1801-1863). One lion is asleep, the other is awake and attentively regards the other. They were originally placed in front of the house built in 1840 by the Lübeck merchant and art collector John Daniel Jacobj (1798-1847) at Große Petersgrube 18. In 1873 they were placed in front of the Hotel Stadt Hamburg am Klingenberg until its destruction in 1942 during World War II, and only later in front of the Holsten Gate. They are complemented by a bronze statue on the other side of the street, the Striding Antilope, by the sculptor Fritz Behn.

  • Lion on guard

  • Sleeping lion

  • Striding antelope

The Holsten Gate Museum was modernized in 2002. Not only was the torture chamber removed; all rooms were redesigned according tor a new concept that involved the integration of image and sound documentation. As of 2006, the museum has been managed by the Cultural Foundation of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck.

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