Fort Wilhelm

Fort Wilhelm was a brick fort built in 1834 by the Kingdom of Hannover on a small plot near the entrance to Bremerhaven’s first harbour basin. It stood on the right bank of the Weser where the Geeste river meets the estuary, protecting the new Alten Hafen. The fort formed a half-circle with a dry moat, two storeys and eighteen guns manned by forty-six soldiers under a captain and lieutenant. Its military value proved slight. Soon after completion the brickwork cracked and engineers doubted the fort could survive its own gunfire. Danish warships passed unchallenged in 1849, prompting the creation of Germany’s first navy under Karl Rudolf Brommy. After the 1849 uprising in Schleswig-Holstein the shattered figurehead of the Danish ship Christian VIII. was kept at the fort until bought by Duke Ernst II in 1853. Today nothing of the fort remains above ground, but a sandstone plaque with the monogram of King Georg V recalls its planned tower fort. The stone once stood in Speckenbüttel Park before being moved to the Morgenstern Museum in Bremerhaven. The site lies close to the modern harbour entrance, where the old harbour basins still hold fishing boats and museum ships.