The rich and wealthy Hanseatic city of Lübeck felt the need in the course of the centuries to protect itself from outside threats with ever stronger walls and fortifications. Three gates - one of them the Holsten Gate - gave access to the city. These city gates were initially simple gates which were repeatedly strengthened over time so that they eventually all had an outer, middle and inner gate.

The Holsten Gate was built in 1478 in the west of the city of Lübeck.

Functionally, the field and the city side have very different designs. While the city side is richly decorated with windows, this would be inappropriate on the field side considering the possibility of combat situations. On the field side there are accordingly only a few small windows. In addition, the walls are interspersed with embrasures. Also, the wall thickness on the field side is greater than on the city side: 3.5 metres compared to less than 1 metre. The reasoning during construction may have been to be able to quickly destroy the gate from the city side in an emergency, so that it would not fall into enemy hands as a bulwark.

The loopholes and the openings of the gun chambers are directed toward the field side. In each tower there were three gun chambers each on the ground, first and second floors. Those on the ground floor have not been preserved. Since the building has subsided over the centuries, they are now 50 centimetres below ground level, and even below the new flooring. On the first upper storey there are, in addition to the aforementioned chambers, two slits for small guns which were above and between the three chambers. There are also small openings on the third upper storey with forward- and downward-directed slits for firing small arms.

The central block has no loopholes. The windows above the passage were also designed for dousing invaders with pitch or boiling water.

Both tower interiors have the same design.On each floor corridors connect the rooms of the central block with tower rooms at the same level.The gun chambers in the towers are in front of the loopholes.Above the gun chambers are hooks from which the above mentioned chains were suspended and attached to the cannon to cushion the recoil after firing. The higher gun chambers of the first upper storey could only be accessed with ladders.

Throughout its history the Holsten Gate was never attacked - hardly surprising.



source: Wikipedia