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Show HBiG, FREE PORT AND CITY Part of lis Great Harbor Leased by Landlocked Czechoslovakia. Washington. Announcement that landlocked Czechoslovakia has leased a sector of Hamburg's vast harbor is a reminder of two aspects of Germany's proud port which always al-ways arouse interest among American Amer-ican visitors, says a bulletin from the Washington (D. C.) headquarters headquar-ters of the National Geographic society. so-ciety. "Hamburg is a free port, and Hamburg is a free city," the bulletin bul-letin explains. "And he who sees Hamburg quickly learns that both appellations have practical consequences. conse-quences. "The visitor starts forth, wisely enough, to see Hamburg's best advertised ad-vertised spectacle, its harbor. He finds it has not been overrated. It is one of the most amazing industrial indus-trial spectacles in the world ; that vast sweep of cluttered water, pierced by hundreds of land fingers separating the rectangular water sheets which are basins, skylined by monster skeletons of mighty ships in the building, often smoke-screened smoke-screened by the chimney outpourings outpour-ings of myriad factories. "For six miles along the broad Elbe, 75 miles up-river from the sea, extend the massive docks, the hippodrome landing stages, the intricate in-tricate jumble of cranes, derricks and elevators. The landing stages are necessary because Hamburg has an 'open harbor,' accessible to the tide, in contrast to the dock-basins and flood-gates of the port of London. Lon-don. Ferry for Sightseeing. "A ferry is the proper sightseeing vehicle. For the port is a lTi-square-mile area, strewn with every type of modern vessel, from the Gargantuan S. S. F.uropa (still under repair from the ravages of a mysterious fire) down through lazy barges, alert yachts, energetic motor mo-tor boats, chugging tugs, and busy ferries. "'You have your pass, of course,' inquires the master of the 'circular ferry' the 'circular' applying to the trip, not the craft. "'A pass, what for?' "'A part of this harbor is a free port, sir," patiently explains the boatman. 'And you will wish to come back.' "You get your pass, your boatman boat-man threads his way for miles and miles through a floating traffic, hut orderly, jam that makes crossing Fifth avenue seem child play to the landlubber mind. You visit the free port, then your ferry heads ! back toward your embarkation place. On the way you pull up at what seems to be a customs house, displaying a sign which marks the free port limits. You show your pass; the boat is searched. "T see how it is about that pass,' a passenger admits. 'But why the search? Obviously we haven't aboard a bale of cotton, or a tractor, trac-tor, or a nice, new American auto.' '"Ah, no, hut one might have mind you, I am not saying you would have one might have a bottle bot-tle of English whisky somewhere about,' tactfully explains the boatman boat-man in his painstaking English. "Must like home.' succumbs the American "Bargain Counter" of Baltic. "But, ull joking to one side, as one of your homeland humorists puts it, you have just seen one key to the prosperity of the foremost continental port. The huge free port, with its mammoth warehouses, ware-houses, cluttered with silks from I China, beef from Argentina, coffee from Brazil, harvesters from the States, all bearing addresses for transshipment to strange-named Baltic ports, none to pay a cent of duty into Germany's t'easury. "One-third of Hamburg's harbor, you later learn, is given over to this free port; in its zone are employed em-ployed some 20,000 of the city's 110.000 industrial workers. "Hamburg entered the German customs union in 1SSS. thus enabling en-abling it to sell its own goods to Germany, tariff free, hut its canny senate maintained its free port privileges. which arrangement makes it the great transoceao department de-partment store of the Baltic. "A senate in a city? Yes, a sen ate which clings to its stiff Spanish dress as loyally as II guards the ancient rights and privileges of the free city the 'Free aud Uanseatic City of Hamburg.' "There are only three German survivors of that mighty Uanseatic merchandising chain of the Middle ages Bremen, Lubeck and Hamburg. Ham-burg. Of these three the mightiest is Hamburg. "Once the senators of Hamburg were elected for life. Their rule of llamnurg was as autocratic, to our modern way of thinking, as that of the Doges of Venice. That has changed now. There is a house of burgesses, giving a legislative balance bal-ance much like that under the United States Capitol dome. Senate's Secret Sessions. "The senate sits in the town hall. Perhaps you have heard of the famous fa-mous Batsweinkeller, beneath the central building, with its jolly stone Bacchus frankly enthroned at the entrance to a vestibule adorned with stained glass window portraitures portrai-tures of the John Paul Joneses of maritime Hamburg. You climb aloft. The peculiar walls catch your eye. They seem to be of solid wood, most delicately carved and beautifully decorated. Closer examination ex-amination shows some to be of felt, pressed to the hardness and likeness like-ness of wood, witli the intricate patterns imposed by a matrix. "And after a banquet hall that conjures up memories of the belted burgesses, the staunch merchants, and the gentlemen adventurers of medieval times you come upon the senate chamber. One feature strikes a home note in the American Ameri-can bosom. This senate, too, has secret sessions. But when it does it retires from the chamber with the visitor's gallery and the press gallery into a smaller chamber that has just one entrance. That entrance en-trance is guarded by two massive doors of incredible thickness. And before each of the double doors it posts a guard. No eavesdropping, even through a double barrier of inches-thick mahogany ! Torpedo Boats, Jobs and Jails. "Hamburg once withstood the attacks at-tacks of Danish kings. It kept aloof from the Thirty Years' war which cut down the prowess of so' many Baltic cities. Away back in the time of Maximillian I it entered en-tered the German confederation as free city, on a parity with other German states. Only yesterday, in its history, in 1923, it experienced a Communist uprising that left a deep impression that Hamburg citizens remember, and bullet holes which the city's buildings attest. "'How was it put down?' a visitor vis-itor inquired. " 'Torpedo boats sailed Into the harbor. The senate saw that till the leaders were given good municipal bouse jobs. But they were locked up on ca" demonstration days,' was a citizen's AS reply. ' fvea'r Architecture "Modernistic " alJ' " "Dating back to CliurleniaBne nS Hamburg Is Germany's most mod- ,00' ern city. Almost modernistic. The lnl,ue fire of IS 12 left few traces of its IlDS' medieval architecture. Some of Its t00,a newer office buildings have spl- 'oo!l ruled sides, in northern search for neW sunlight; others have contours that fle make them loom up In Hamburg regar vistas like a giant Bremen entering SeptE a narrow harbor. from "In these office buildings are ele- cel'u valors which have dispensed with tlU"!1 doors and operators. They run on Savii the chain principle like buckets In at)le a well. They do not stop. One one hops on or off as the 'buckets' be 1 pass his floor. If one forgets to ' fortl alight nt Ihe right floor, no harm At done. Stay on, and the passenger ,Bf will be carried around the top, or f'ift: bottom, of the shaft, as on a Fer- elln ris wheel. stoo "Industrial to its finger tips, mill- br01 tantly so, Hamburg is a beautiful oal! city. It leaves a confused impres- ' 1 sion of Minneapolis and Venice. "ie Fcr the Alster river, en route to the Elbe, splavs wide in the midst T of Hamburg's busiest quarter, giv- a v ing it the unique spectacle of great el' office buildings, fine hotels, fash- I1110 ionable shops, all along the lake front. Clerks in the great, gray stone building which is the office of sa-? the Hamburg-Aniericrin line, glare- llr0 ing up from their ledgers, can look ''v( out over a glistening sheet of water, ,ies flecked with tiny yachts, motor vva boats, scurrying ferries, racing ('aI shells, and canoes; with swans and ,0 sea gulls hovering about. So Front on Lakes; Back on Rivers. "By night the hotel visitor can tei view from his window the moonlit tin water, rimmed by thousands of elec- he: trie bulbs, and see tiny, firefly foi points of light bobbing all over the to surface. At one corner are huddled lie hundreds of canoes, their occupants a reclining on cushions, listening to ea the concert of the Alster pavilion, of This sprightly cafe, or coffee I'r house, along the lake front, gath- sa ers its daytime patronage from the great department stores of the op- Co posite side of the street. ai "If many of Hamburg's offices a and homes front on the lakes, oth- ni ers open their back doors on canals. ui Especially the shops, where barges w creeping through the narrow wa- n terways that link the Alster and f the Elbe serve as delivery vans c from docks to retailers. t "Under the Elbe is a tunnel. Two parallel tubes supplement two 1 mighty bridges in the trans-Elbe j traflic. But they are not ap- 1 proacbed from a level causeway as in our Hudson tunnel. Huge elevators ele-vators carry pedestrians, vehicles and cyclists don't forget the cyclistsfrom cy-clistsfrom Hie street leyel to the tunnel entrances. Of course the methodical German has counted the passengers through the tubes. One month's record shows the ratio of j Sno pedestrians to every 150 cy- J clists and 9 vehicles. "But of all the strange sights of j Hamburg, the strangest, perhaps, j are the uniforms of the trades unions. One type of ships' carpenter carpen-ter wears a shirt cut with a 'V ' that penetrates nearly to the belt line. He has a tiny jacket, and flaring trousers of corduroy. Another An-other branch of the carpenters' union is distinguished by velvet corduroy jackets and trousers nnd high silk hats. And a third variety one may identify by earrings!" |
