The story of this place
The Holstentor, built in 1478 as the western gate of Lübeck, is the surviving symbol of the Hanseatic League, the medieval trading confederation of some 200 towns that dominated northern European commerce for 400 years. Lübeck was the 'Queen of the Hansa', and above the gate's archway ran the proud Latin motto 'Concordia domi foris pax' — harmony within, peace without. The gate's soft marshy ground made its two round towers sink and tilt toward each other over the centuries; engineers halted the lean in the 1930s. Lübeck's brick-Gothic old town, birthplace of Nobel laureate Thomas Mann, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. The Holstentor appears on the German 2-euro coin and once graced the 50-mark note.