989. Bremer
Freimarkt

For almost 1000 years during the lost two week of October the “5th Bremer season” of the year will be celebrated. For 17 days the city on the river is turned upside down. Fpur million people are coming every year from far and wide to become intoxicated by the event of superlatives: no other funfair offers visitors so many attractions as the Bremer Freimarkt. About 50 fairground rides provide some tingling moments for young and old. Nowhere else such exciting celebrations took place as in the hanseatic city by the weser. Every year since 1035 the city celebrated these market rights and maintained one of the longest funfair traditions in Germany.

The Freimarkt – free market – is one of the oldest funfairs in Germany. Already in 888 King Arnulf had handed over a document to the archbishop of Bremen conferring on Bremen the prerogative of coinage, the market rights and the right to levy tolls. The foundation charter of the emperor Conrad II dating from the year 1025 is the confirmation of a recognized right in 966 to hold a market in Bremen. Even if in these documents from 888 and 966 no precise dates are mentioned for holding the market – this happens only later in the document of 1035 – it mentions exactly the 16th October 1035. The original document of 888 is kept in the archives at Stade: a photo of it with detailed explanations is kept in Bremen Cathedral Museum in the department...