About this place
Holstenstraße is the commercial heart of rebuilt Kiel, a wide pedestrian boulevard running from the Nikolaikirche and the Alter Markt down toward the harbour. The route itself is ancient, laid out in the thirteenth century as the country road that carried travellers and goods south into central Holstein, and it has been recorded under the name Holstenstraße since 1525. Its gabled merchant houses were almost entirely erased by wartime bombing, so what you walk today is a confident post-war reconstruction. In December 1953 the upper section was closed to private cars and, with the southern stretch following in 1957, Kiel became the birthplace of the German pedestrian zone. Halfway along, the small Asmus-Bremer-Platz gathers shoppers around a friendly bronze of a popular seventeenth-century mayor, a favourite meeting point and photo stop.
Key facts
- 1953 year — Holstenstraße became West Germany's first traffic-free pedestrian shopping street
- 1525 year — First documented under the name Holstenstraße, on a route already laid out in the 13th century
- 1982 year — Frauke Wehberg's seated bronze of mayor Asmus Bremer was placed on the square named for him
📍 Asmus-Bremer-Platz, 24103, Kiel