Centralhallen Bremen

The Centralhallen in Bremen were built in 1856 as the city’s largest event venue. They stood in the Bahnhofsvorstadt near the old Central Station, which later moved east. The street behind the halls, Breitenweg, appeared only after their construction. A high road now crosses the site where the halls once stood.

The halls hosted every kind of event: theatre, music, sport, political meetings, artists’ festivals and private parties. In 1933 Alfred Faust of the SPD spoke there before a crowd that included Johannes Lücke, the first Bremen victim of Nazi terror. The Comedian Harmonists played to a full house in April 1933, praised by Nazi papers only months before their ban. In 1937 the German boxing championships came to Bremen for the only time.

The architect Joseph Ostwald remodelled the Great Hall between 1939 and 1943. The building was destroyed soon after. Today the site is crossed by a high road, and the memory of the Centralhallen lives on in local history.