Welcome to the audio tour through our historic town Otterndorf. 9th grade students from the local school Gymnasium Otterndorf have translated and recorded the English version of the tour for you.

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Hearing the term “Baroque“ surely makes you think of some things immediately: baroque churches; baroque castles, the music in the Boroque style like Händel or Bach. The Baroque always shows a certain playfulness that shamelessly wants to impress. But it shows no roughness or any unimaginative simplicity. In this sense it is an expression of culture and enjoyment of life.
Well, maybe you can’t find this in a church like “Vierzehnheiligen“ or a castle like Versailles in Otterndorf. Nevertheless, the beautiful “Baroque House“ on the corner of Cuxhavener Straße and Johann-Heinrich-Voß-Straße embodies all the virtues and the art of this time. Just have a look at the playful gables and windows!
In addition to that, it’s one of the oldest buildings in Otterndorf. When experts took a look at the material used for the building, it was found to be built with stones in the so-called “cloister format“, which was mainly used in the 16th century. The front of the Baroque House that we can see now was rebuilt and is not as old as the rest.
During the reigns of the dukes of Lauenburg, the counts of Hadeln lived in this building, serving in a way as governors for this area, which was quite far away from the home territories of the dukes. After the extinction of the dynasty of Lauenburg, Hadeln became part of the electorate of Hannover in 1731. Since then, the important civil servants who lived in this house called themselves “directors of the court”. They held the local jurisdiction and parts of the local administration.
In 1769, the Royal and Electoral Chamber in Hannover exchanged the Baroque House for the merchant house of Marcus Hinrich Schröder, which is now known as the administrative district office. Since then the house is in private use. It was restored a few years ago and now has a very speacial place in the beautiful townscape of Otterndorf, you can almost say its “baroque”.