Nikolaifleet

This guide to Nikolaifleet in Hamburg begins just after 1 a.m. on May 5, 1842, when a neighbor smelled smoke from Eduard Cohen's cigar factory on Deichstrasse, and a hard, dry wind pushed the flames beyond anyone's control. It follows the three days the Great Fire burned through Hamburg's medieval center, the firefighters and officials caught up in the disaster, and the toll it left across the old town. Stand at the water's edge and consider why the crooked half-timbered houses leaning over this canal, first recorded in 1188, are still here.