St. Pauli and Port of Hamburg Walking Tour

Overview

St. Pauli is a narrow strip of ground that for centuries belonged to neither of the two cities on either side of it. Hamburg's wall ended at one end and Danish-ruled Altona began at the other, and the gap between them filled up with everything the authorities wanted at arm's length. That history explains almost everything about the place today.

What to expect

The walk covers the main strip and the side streets running off it towards the water, with the working port visible below at several points. Most of it is at street level and much of it is unglamorous by daylight, which is rather the point.

The street is named after rope

Start here, because it explains the shape. A rope-walk is a long straight lane where hemp is laid out and twisted into cable, and a ship's rigging needs hundreds of metres of it in a single unbroken run. The trade involved tar and open flame, so the city refused to have it inside the walls and put the ropemakers out here on a strip long enough for the job. The famous street is that strip, and its length is the length of a rope.

A district of what was not allowed elsewhere

The same logic put everything else here: tanning, whale-oil boiling, and later the taverns and theatres. Because the neighbourhood sat between two separate states — Altona was Danish until 1864 — people and businesses moved across the line whenever one side's rules became inconvenient. The habit of not quite belonging to Hamburg has never gone away, and the district still votes, dresses and argues differently from the rest of the city.

The gated street and its rules

Said plainly rather than coyly. One short side street is closed at both ends by metal screens, put up in 1933 to keep what happens inside it out of public view. Two rules are enforced by the people who work there, not by the city: no photography of any kind, and no women or under-eighteens. Both are enforced vigorously, and visitors who ignore either are shouted at, soaked, or have equipment taken. Your guide will explain it from the end of the street; treat that as the sensible way to see it.

What the law actually is

Useful context that most accounts skip. Sex work has been a legal occupation in Germany since 2002, carrying the right to a contract, to social insurance and to sue for payment, and since 2017 those working have had to register and attend health counselling. What you are looking at is a regulated industry with labour law attached, and the tour treats it as an economy rather than a spectacle.

Where four musicians learned their trade

Between 1960 and 1962 an unknown Liverpool group played over a thousand hours on stage in clubs along this street and the alley behind it, several nights a week. They arrived competent and left formidable, and always credited the grind here rather than anything at home. One venue is still open under its original name.

The club with the skull on the flag

The football team that plays a few streets north adopted a skull and crossbones from the neighbourhood in the 1980s, banned far-right banners from its ground before almost any other German club, and turned its supporters into a political identity. On match days the whole district wears brown and white.

Five in the morning on Sunday

One thing to know for later. The fish market by the water has opened at dawn every Sunday since 1703, and it is the point where the night ending and the week beginning meet in the same hall — market traders shouting at one end, people who have not been to bed at the other.