One in 42 people in Hamburg, Germany, are dollar millionaires, according to Victor, the guide on the free tour I joined. Porsches, Ferraris and Lamborghinis are parked in quiet streets, but otherwise they don’t flaunt their wealth.
Hamburg, with 1.86-million people, is by far the wealthiest city in Germany, as is Joburg in SA, and Africa. According to Henleyglobal.com, there are 11,700 dollar millionaires in Joburg, or one in 640 people in the city of 6.4-million.
Like a fair percentage of middle-class families these days, my daughter has emigrated to Europe, in particular, Hamburg. I went to visit her and I fell in love with the city. The meandering canals, lush parks and tree-lined streets, the mix of modern and old-world buildings, and bikes and e-scooters everywhere, make it one of the world’s greenest, most environmentally friendly cities.
It’s a city, certainly in summer, where Hamburgers get out and soak up every bit of it — sailing on the lake, zipping along the multitude of bike paths, grabbing meals or drinks along canals or the lake, or hiring boats, kayaks and stand-up paddle boards and gliding down the waterways.
Maybe it’s the trees, the parks, the water almost on every block, but there is a calm, laid-back energy about Hamburg and its people.
Hamburg has several unique features. Historically a trading city, it has 74km² of harbour frontage on the Elbe River that is about 100km from the North Sea. “Without the Elbe River, Hamburg wouldn’t be the economic power it is today,” according to Hamburg.com.
A maze of canals radiate out from the river, with 2,500 bridges, more than Venice, Amsterdam and London together. “Hamburg owes its multicultural vibe and worldly character to this mighty river,” Hamburg.com says.
It has a large warehouse district, Speicherstadt, built on oak-pile foundations, from the late 1880s, making it the world’s largest warehouse district. It has become the world’s third-largest container ship port.
Before a world of Trump tariffs, Hamburg developed its reputation as a trading giant due to a tariff-free port, said Victor. In 1189, emperor Barbarossa declared the city’s port a custom-free zone, helping to establish the city as an economic power. Remarkably this lasted until 2013, when EU customs regulations changed things.
A charming tradition in the harbour is that when a ship’s national flag is spotted, the port authorities play that ship’s national anthem as it comes into port, and a welcome message in the crew’s mother tongue, as well as in German and English.
But perhaps better known is that The Beatles started their music career in the clubs around Reeperbahn in St Pauli of the city in 1960. John Lennon is quoted as saying, “I was born in Liverpool but raised in Hamburg.” The club is down Jäger Passage with graffiti strewn on its brick walls, and the tar and cobbled road broken in places. They played about 270 shows over two years, the hard work necessary for their huge success later.
In July 2024 the German consul-general in Chicago said there were 84-million bikes in Germany. It is unknown how many bikes there are in Hamburg but they were parked everywhere. Bike lanes are demarcated with red-paved strips on pavements and lanes in roads, and motorists respect cyclists.
It’s a convenient system — an app indicates where the bikes are parked. They are activated through the app, parked again when the rider no longer needs them, and deactivated. The same system works for the e-scooters, which I found fun to ride. I also used the underground and bus systems, both frequent and efficient.
Victor walked us to the St Nicholas Church, or the remains of it after World War 2. It stands as a memorial, stark and blackened, its steeple rising 147.3m. A cellar museum exhibition asks: “How do we want to live memory today — so that it can create solidarity with people in similar situations across generations and countries?” Every Wednesday at midday the 51 bells of the carillon, installed in 1993, are rung for peace in Ukraine.
Numerous small, square brass plaques have been placed on the pavement outside homes from where Jews were removed to be taken to the death camps. Some homes have multiple plaques or Stolpersteine (“stumbling stones”) outside. They appear in cities across Germany. The inscription reads, “Here lived”, and includes the individual’s name, date of birth, deportation date, what camp they went to, and fate, either suicide or murder. They are a gentle and powerful reminder that Germans could not have been unaware of the fate of their neighbours.
Germans still live with the legacy of the holocaust horrors, and as such don’t proudly claim to be German. Victor put it succinctly: “I am more proud to be a Hamburger than a German.”
What surprised me was the World War 2 bunkers in Hamburg, popping up on street corners. About 1, 051 were built in the city, with about 650 remaining. Many are underground but because their walls are 3.5m thick, they are almost impossible to demolish — the amount of explosives needed would take out surrounding residential homes. My daughter took me to the Bunker St Pauli, which could shelter up to 25,000 people. It’s a monstrous, grey concrete structure rising 35m into the skies, now with windows and greenery, and a mixed-use complex of hotel, restaurants, offices, music venues and a rooftop park. We bought juices and sat on the roof in this surreal space.
Another day we hopped on the ferry and took a trip up the river to a small beach. Armed with a picnic blanket and books, we settled down on a patch of white sand, after having a Hamburg speciality, the Fischbrötchen, or fish roll, and a beer. I had heard this was a must-have, but I was disappointed — it was a dry piece of fish with lettuce, tomato and onions, with no sauce.
Perhaps the centrepiece of the city is the stadtpark, billed on the website as Hamburg’s “recreation destination”. With me on an e-scooter, and her on her bike, we rode into the centre of it, a deep forest with the distant hum of traffic. I almost expected to see a deer slipping away as we approached. Armed again with our blanket and books, we found a quiet patch of a large field and settled down. Hamburgers chill here, soaking up the sun, or catching concerts or films in the huge planetarium in the park, a little reminiscent of the Voortrekker Monument, though almost double the height.
Comparisons with Joburg are inevitable. The most glaring is that Hamburgers get out and enjoy their city, instead of a city where residents have to fight for basic amenities such as getting the central city library reopened or the Johannesburg Art Gallery fixed to house its world-class collection, besides the basics such as water, electricity and traffic lights.
What struck me in Hamburg was the respect people show one another — just standing on the pavement at a pedestrian crossing causes cars to stop. As Victor said regarding the centuries of trade: “You don’t need skills; you just treat others with respect.” Who can blame our kids for moving abroad, to live in people-friendly cities such as Hamburg.
I’ll be back next summer.
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