St. Peter's Cathedral (Dom)
Two soaring green helmeted towers close off the eastern side of the Marktplatz, marking a cathedral where Christians have worshipped for more than 1,200 years. Beneath its floor lies the Bleikeller, a cellar of naturally mummified bodies that has drawn the curious for centuries.
About this place
St. Peter's Cathedral, known to locals simply as the Dom, has anchored Bremen's skyline since the diocese was founded here in 789 by the missionary Willehad. The building you see today grew across the centuries: a Romanesque sandstone basilica raised in the eleventh century over vaulted crypts, softened around the year 1500 with delicate late Gothic net vaulting, and finally crowned in the 1890s when the twin towers were raised to their full height and given the Rhenish spires that still catch the light. Inside, five organs carry on a musical tradition that once included a famous instrument built by Arp Schnitger, while the sombre lower church holds Bremen's most peculiar attraction, the Bleikeller, or lead cellar, where several bodies dried out naturally instead of decaying and now rest in open coffins for visitors to see.
Key facts
- 89 metres — The height of the cathedral's twin west towers, raised to their present form in the 1890s
- 789 year — The diocese of Bremen was founded and the first cathedral begun by the missionary Willehad
- 1698 year — Naturally mummified bodies were discovered by chance in the Bleikeller lead cellar
📍 Am Dom 1, 28195, Bremen