Germany (Lonely Planet, 6th Edition) - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [571]
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Getting Around
Single bus tickets cost €1.90, while 24-hour tickets are €4.40.
There are taxi ranks at the Hauptbahnhof and behind the Altes Rathaus. To call one, ring 340 34.
Bikes can be hired from Voss Fahrräder/Parkhaus am Bahnhof ( 59 994; Am Bahnhof; per day €11; 9am-1pm & 2-7pm Mon-Fri, 10am-4pm Sat).
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WEST OF HANOVER
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OSNABRÜCK
0541 / pop 163,000
‘Zum Glück komm’ ich aus Osnabrück’, locals boast of their good luck to come from this city; and that’s something you most understand at night, wandering the winding lamp-lit streets of the old town, past ornate half-timbered houses.
But this historic heartland is now offset by a contemporary building that has overtaken interest in Osnabrück’s native son Erich Maria Remarque, author of the WWI classic All Quiet on the Western Front, and truly eclipsed Osnabrück’s claim to be where the Thirty Years’ War ended in 1648. The construction in question is the Felix-Nussbaum-Haus, by leading world architect Daniel Libeskind.
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Orientation
Osnabrück’s egg-shaped city centre is divided into the northern Altstadt and the southern Neustadt, with the east–west Neumarkt drawing a line across the middle. The Hauptbahnhof is on the town’s eastern edge. To reach the centre from the station takes about 15 minutes, going straight ahead along Möserstrasse, turning left at the Kaufhof building into Wittekindstrasse and then right into Grosser Strasse. When you come to the Domhof, continue left along Krahnstrasse to the tourist office. Pick up the free city map from the DB Service Point at the train station before setting out.
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Information
There’s an ATM in the Hauptbahnhof.
Main post office (Theodor-Heuss-Platz 6-9; 8am-7pm Mon-Fri, to 2pm Sat)
Osnabrück Marketing & Tourismus ( 323 2202; www.osnabrueck.de, in German; Bierstrasse 22/23; 9.30am-6pm Mon-Fri, 10am-4pm Sat)
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Sights
FELIX-NUSSBAUM-HAUS
Shaped like an interconnected series of concrete shards, with slit windows and sloping floors, the Felix-Nussbaum-Haus ( 323 2207, 323 2237; Lotter Strasse 2; adult/concession €5/3; 11am-6pm Tue-Fri, 10am-6pm Sat & Sun) is an older, slightly more neglected sister of Libeskind’s famous Jewish Museum Berlin. Inside is a collection of works by the Osnabrück-born Jewish painter Felix Nussbaum (1904–44). His works reveal shades of Van Gogh and Henri Rousseau, and Libeskind’s 1988 building uses space magnificently to illustrate the absence of orientation in Nussbaum’s eventful and tragic life. In 1944, after several years in exile, arrest in Belgium and successful escape in France, he was denounced and finally deported from Belgium to Auschwitz, where he died. Today the museum shares an entrance with the Kulturgeschichtliches Museum (entry included in price), which has graphics cabinets, also designed by Libeskind, holding works by Albrecht Dürer.
MARKT & AROUND
It was on the Rathaus (admission free; 8am-8pm Mon-Fri, 9am-4pm Sat, 10am-4pm Sun) steps that the Peace of Westphalia was proclaimed on 25 October 1648, ending the Thirty Years’ War. The preceding peace negotiations were conducted partly in Münster, about 60km south, and partly in the Rathaus’ Friedenssaal (Peace Hall). On the left as you enter the Rathaus are portraits of the negotiators. Also have a look around the Schatzkammer (Treasure Chamber) opposite, especially for the 13th-century Kaiserpokal (Kaiser goblet).
The four richly ornamented cross gables of the Marienkirche loom above the square, painstakingly rebuilt after burning down during WWII. Opposite, the small Erich Maria Remarque Friedenszentrum (Erich Maria Remarque Peace Centre; 323 2109; www.remarque.uos.de; Markt 6; admission free; 10am-1pm & 3-5pm Tue-Fri, 11am-5pm Sat & Sun) uses photos and documents to chronicle the writer’s life (1898–1970) and work.
Various half-timbered houses survived WWII. At Bierstrasse 24 is the baroque Romantik Hotel Walhalla, with a portal flanked by cheeky