Monument / MemorialBremer Stadtmusikanten

You are standing in front of the City Hall, go round the left corner and you will find the statue of the four town musicians, their correct address is Unser Lieben Frauen Kirchhof (Churchyard, Church of our Lady). The bronze sculpture was created in 1951 by the artist Gerhard Marcks.

You remember The Brothers Grimms fairy tale? A donkey, a dog, a cat and a cock escape from their owners who treat them badly and decide to go to Bremen to become town musicians there. "We can always find something better than death", is their motto. On the way they come to an inn in which some robbers have a feast, the animals succeed in chasing them away and like it there so much that they refrain from continuing their journey.

Notwithstanding the fact that they never arrived, the Bremers celebrate the four animals in all possible ways. Hardly a souvenir without them! It‘s difficult to take a photo of the statue because all the time people come to touch the donkey‘s feet with both hands which is considered to bring luck, after 57 years of touching and rubbing the feet have become golden from the many hands!

When I was looking at the statue, a young man said to his girl-friend, "Look at the cat, doesn‘t it look like a weasel?" Indeed, it does, or at least its head does, I will never be able to see this bronze animal as a cat again!

Bremen is the beginning (or the end if you like) of the German Fairy Tale Route, a tourist route of 818 km running mostly along the river Weser from Bremen to Hanau, the birth place of the Brothers Grimm.