Traveling to Northern Germany and want to take a self-guided Beatles Hamburg tour?
Well, you’re in luck.
Not only are there a lot of still-standing places that the Beatles frequented, but there is also quite a bit of Beatle memorabilia around the city as well.
Because, as John Lennon once said, “I may have been born in Liverpool, but I grew up in Hamburg.”
Before I visited Hamburg, as I did once before in Liverpool, I planned out every step of my Beatles journey. I wanted to see Hamburg through their eyes, witness where they honed their chops, and meet some fellow music-loving characters along the way.
And, thanks to some very special people in Hamburg, I accomplished all of that and more.
It should be noted that all of the sites mentioned in this Beatles Hamburg tour guide, except for St. Michael’s Church, are located in the city’s anarchist, “anything goes except fascism” district of St. Pauli, and are smack dab on the Hells Angels-controlled Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s red-light district.
With its gritty alleyways, liberalism, fascinating history, and artistic ways, St. Pauli is easily my favorite neighborhood in Hamburg, but keep all of this in mind if you plan on doing some family-oriented tourism or feel like heading out at night.
It gets wild.
In this guide, we’ll cover:
- How to take a Beatles Tour in Hamburg
- The main Hamburg places where the Beatles hung out
- Why Hamburg was such a monumental city for the Fab Four.
- And so much more!
So, without further ado…
Table of Contents
- How to Take a Self-Guided Beatles Tour in Hamburg
- A History of The Beatles in Hamburg
- Stop #1 – Beatles-Platz (Reeperbahn 174)
- Where did The Beatles Play in Hamburg?
- Stop #2 – The Indra Club (Grosse Freiheit 64)
- Stop #3 – The Kaiserkeller (Grosse Freiheit 36)
- Stop #4 – The Top Ten (Reeperbahn 136)
- Stop #5 – The Star Club (39 Grosse Freiheit)
- Stop #6 – The Bambi Kino (33 Paul-Roosen Strasse)
- Stop #7 – Fischmarkt (Grosse Elbstrasse)
- Stop #8 – St. Michael’s Church (Englische Planke 1)
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A History of The Beatles in Hamburg
On August 17, 1960, four wide-eyed, leather jacket-clad lads from Liverpool played their first-ever Hamburg show at St. Pauli’s Indra Club on the notorious Grosse Freiheit.
This was a time when the Fab Four was indeed five. When Pete Best was still the drummer, Stu Sutcliffe was flicking the bass, and George Harrison had to lie about his age – which was 17 – just to be allowed in the country.
They say that to become world-class in any field, you have put in 10 000 hours, and Hamburg is where the Beatles put in theirs. Due to grueling playing schedules, Hamburg turned the Beatles from a teenaged skiffle band into tight, creative rock n’ rollers.
Read More: How to Visit Jim Morrison’s Grave in Paris (Respectfully)
Stop #1 – Beatles-Platz (Reeperbahn 174)
The first stop on this Beatles tour in Hamburg is Beatles-Platz, a plaza at the cross-section of The Reeperbahn and Grosse Freiheit that pays ode to the mop tops.
To be honest, during the day this plaza isn’t much; it’s a few statues of cookie-cutter Beatles figures, a vinyl record-looking sidewalk, and some song lyrics, but at night the statues light up to satisfy your neon dreams.
Either way, the plaza does act as a great gateway stop to Grosse Freiheit.
🔥 Feel like you’d get more out of Hamburg with some assistance? This 2.5-hour Beatles Tour in Hamburg is highly rated and includes many of the spots on this list!
Where did The Beatles Play in Hamburg?
There were quite a few venues that the Beatles played in Hamburg, most notably The Indra Club, The Kaiserkeller, The Top Ten, and The Star Club.
Here’s an overview of each location and why the venues are significant:
Stop #2 – The Indra Club (Grosse Freiheit 64)
The Beatles’ initial jaunt to Liverpool was due to a contract their then manager, Allan Williams (also the owner of Liverpool’s Jacaranda Club), made with a man named Bruno Koschmider.
Bruno was the owner of two Hamburg clubs, the Indra Club and The Kaiserkeller, and he was willing to pay The Beatles 2.50 Euros (30 DM) per person, per day, for a two-month Indra Club residency, while Williams would earn the DM equivalent of 10 Euro per week.
Additionally, the band would get a place to sleep — The Bambi Kino.
Bruno Koschmider was an ex-military brute of a man who, with seemingly little interest in music, pushed the Beatles to their very limits and beyond. The club owner demanded that if The Beatles wanted to keep their residency, they were required to perform for clients all night long, and sometimes, that meant from 7 PM until 7 AM.
To get through these grueling hours, The Beatles would take Preludin, a stimulant.
As George Harrison so eloquently put the experience, “We were frothing at the mouth.”
While, as Bruno Koschmider said about the experience, “Mach Schau (Make a show)“.
🔥 For a different perspective on St. Pauli, consider taking this St. Pauli Ahoy Nighttime Tour. It’s highly rated and includes stops along the Red Light district. Note that this is for adults only.
Stop #3 – The Kaiserkeller (Grosse Freiheit 36)
The Beatles performed at the Indra Club for forty nights until it closed mid-October due to noise complaints. From there, the band moved to the slightly larger Kaiserkeller.
As it turned out, there would be another Liverpudlian band performing alongside The Beatles, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes; the drummer for which was none other than Ringo Starr. Both bands were to play the same long nights as The Beatles had already endured at The Indra Club, and were to alternate sets on stage.
Speaking of the Kaiserkeller’s stage, it was made up of no more than planks of wood set on top of crates. It was so rickety that the bands placed bets to see who would be the one to break it — that prize eventually went to Rory Storm.
As Rory performed a rock n roll jump one evening, he crashed through the wood and took Ringo’s cymbals along with him. After the incident, both Rory Storm & The Hurricanes and The Beatles went across the road to a cafe, where an infuriated Bruno Koschmider sent his doormen to rough them all up.
Read more: How to Take a Hollywood and Laurel Canyon Music Tour with Pamela Des Barres
At the Kaiserkeller, the Beatles met one of their most influential German ladies, Astrid Kirchherr.
Astrid was a Hamburg-born artist and photographer who, despite her disgust at the seediness of Grosse Freiheit, went with musician Klaus Voormanto see the Beatles perform.
Astrid took the early, era-defining Hamburg photographs of the Beatles, Astrid who introduced them to a sleeker style of clothing, Astrid who gave the Beatles their mop-top hair do’s Astrid who would eventually steal the heart of Stu Sutcliffe.
But perhaps one of the most enduring legends from The Kaiserkeller involves a man named Horst Fascher, the Kaiserkeller’s bouncer (and Star Club owner), and John Lennon.
One night as The Beatles were gearing up to begin their set, Lennon was nowhere to be found.
After frantically searching for him, Fascher eventually found Lennon canoodling with an enthusiastic young lady in the loo. To break up the couple and get Lennon back onstage, Fascher turned on the shower above their heads. When Lennon berated Fascher for leaving him dripping wet, Fascher said, “I don’t give a sh*t, you’re going on stage and I don’t care if you do it naked.”
Something you shouldn’t offhandedly say to John Lennon.
A few minutes later, to a titillated audience, Lennon appeared on stage wearing nothing but his underwear and a toilet seat draped around his neck.
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Stop #4 – The Top Ten (Reeperbahn 136)
Opened in 1960 by Peter Eckhorn, performing at The Top Ten was an enticing idea for The Beatles, who were through putting up with Koschmider and his abuse.
Peter Eckhorn offered The Beatles better equipment, more money, and a marginally more comfortable place to sleep right above the club. However, taking the gig would mean breaking their contract with Koschmider.
When the decision to leave The Kaiserkeller and begin working at The Top Ten was made, Koschmider decided to fire back at the band by reporting George Harrison for working underage, which led to George’s deportation.
Then, when Pete Best and Paul McCartney went to the Bambi Kino to retrieve their belongings, they found the place to be in total darkness, due to Koschmider cutting the power. As a great middle finger to Koschmider, the boys found a condom, nailed it to the concrete wall, and set it on fire for light.
Koschmider then reported them for attempted arson, and Best and McCartney spent three hours in the police station before being deported as well.
While Stu Sutcliffe decided to stay in Hamburg for a while longer with Astrid, John Lennon soon followed his three deported bandmates back to England. After playing a stint in Liverpool, George Harrison celebrated his 18th birthday, the immigration problems were sorted, and the boys went back to Hamburg to begin their residency at The Top Ten, where they would play until July 2, 1961.
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Stop #5 – The Star Club (39 Grosse Freiheit)
The Star Club, the baby of Horst Fascher, first booked The Beatles on April 13, 1962 in celebration of the club’s opening, and were so impressed that they had them back that November.
By the second Star Club gig, Ringo Starr had become the permanent drummer, The Beatles were able to afford single rooms in hotels, and they honed their chops and had big enough of a following to have their performance recorded in the form of The Beatles: Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962.
While it was a must-stop for many major artists (The Beatles shared the bill with artists such as Gerry & the Pacemakers, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard), The Star Club’s heyday was short-lived. By 1969, after a few years of Fascher being in prison for assault, the venue’s finances were in trouble and it closed its doors.
While the building later burned down, there is still a small gravestone-like memorial at the site dedicated to The Star Club.
Stop #6 – The Bambi Kino (33 Paul-Roosen Strasse)
The first steady address the Beatles had in Hamburg was the Bambi Kino – a cinema just around the corner from the Indra Club that showed p*rnography and westerns. With no window or heating at the Bambi, The Beatles were roughing it.
“We lived backstage in the Bambi Kino, next to the toilets, and you could always smell them. The room had been an old storeroom, and there were just concrete walls and nothing else. No heat, no wallpaper, not a lick of paint; and two sets of bunk beds, with not very much covers— Union Jack flags—we were frozen.” – Paul McCartney
Today, the Bambi Kino is no longer a cinema, but a private residence. However, the current owners have hung plaques paying ode to its famous former inhabitants.
Read More: Graffiti and Velvet at the John Lennon Wall in Prague
Stop #7 – Fischmarkt (Grosse Elbstrasse)
A traditional market, the Fischmarkt in Hamburg where all the partiers go after a rowdy night on the Reeperbahn. This practice rings just as true today as it did back in the early 60’s when The Beatles traipsed the area.
During the era of The Beatles troubles with Koschmider, they somehow managed to pull one of their weirdest stunts. After a night of performing and partying, the boys headed to Fischmarkt to cap off their night with a bang.
There, they spontaneously decided to buy a pig, which they named Bruno. Bruno and The Beatles caused quite a commotion as the boys chased the pig around the market; an act which eventually led to the police being called.
Sadly, Bruno wouldn’t get to live out his days being chased around many more markets, because as a final ‘f*ck you’ to Koschmider, he was butchered.
🔥 Want to visit more sites in the city than just Beatles ones? Then a hop-on hop-off city tour of Hamburg is the way to go!
Stop #8 – St. Michael’s Church (Englische Planke 1)
Right before my journey to Hamburg, I stumbled across the following quote from a 1975 Spin Magazine interview with John Lennon:
You know what I have written — carved — on a church in Hamburg? “John loves Cyn.” That was my first going out with her at that time. A church that overlooks… just outside the Reeperbahn. But out right in town, and it’s got a big green tower, that you can walk up in. And we all carved our names on there. You can have a look. There will be John + Cyn, Stu [Stuart Sutcliffe] + Astrid, Paul + … what the hell was the girl at that time?
Were they all English girls?
Except for Astrid with Stu. I think Stu and Astrid is up there … but I know John + Cyn is. We stuck our names up there with whoever we were hanging on then. I didn’t go out with a German girl. I ended up with an American, I never saw her again.
Despite a thorough google search, I came up totally short with finding the name of the church on the internet. So, I asked my personal Hamburg historian, Ralph, if he had ever heard of the carving. He hadn’t.
Thankfully, as an ever-curious spirit in all things Beatles, Ralph wanted to know the answer to my question as well. So he called up his good friend and Beatles Historian Stefanie Hempel. Stefanie is the originator of the one and only Hempel’s Beatles Tour in Hamburg. If anyone knew where to find this carving, surely it would be her, right?
Only… she had never heard of it either. But she and Ralph agreed that the only church that fit the bill was St. Michael’s, so off I went.
I must have scoured every corner of that church. I started by walking the grounds and canvassing the outside, and slowly worked my way in and up, up, up. My fellow tourists and the church’s staff must have branded me a lunatic, I’m sure. Because while everyone else was admiring the fascinating architecture and incredible views the sky-high church offered, I was nose to the grindstone – literally – checking every effing inch of that building for the simplest of carvings.
Spoiler alert: I never found it.
After what seemed like forever, a 10 euro fee to get me to the top, and acquiring a massive headache, I never found it. Whether John was referring to a different church, or whether the carving has been lost to time and renovations, I never found it.
Calling all Beatle-freaks: If you know where find this carving, let me know.I can’t say I’m ever going to go back to St. Michael’s, but like, just for my peace of mind, you know?
***
That’s it for my self-guided Beatles Hamburg Tour guide!
I hope you find this useful in your travels, as I truly believe keeping music history alive is so important.
What would you add to your own self-guided Beatles in Hamburg tour? Let’s discuss in the comments!
Read More:
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Graffiti and Velvet at the John Lennon Wall in Prague
Happy Birthday, John Lennon
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The Day I Was Left Alone in Berlin’s Hansa Recording Studios
