Worpswede

The Weyerberg is a low sand hill rising from the Teufelsmoor, a large peat bog north of Bremen that was settled by turf cutters under harsh conditions. In 1889 Fritz Mackensen and others founded an artists' colony here, drawn by the flat horizons, huge skies and the moor light; Paula Modersohn-Becker worked in the village and became one of the most significant painters of early German modernism, dying at thirty-one in 1907. Heinrich Vogeler built the Barkenhoff as a Jugendstil house and social centre. The Café Worpswede, an expressionist brick building of 1925, is known locally as the Kaffee Verrückt, the mad cafe.

History

Worpswede's origins go back to the Bronze Age, and it is first mentioned in 1218, belonging to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen; Sweden occupied it briefly in 1630, and in 1648 the archbishopric became the Duchy of Bremen, ruled by the Swedish crown and from 1715 by Hanover. Only in 1750 did Jürgen Christian Findorff begin colonising the Teufelsmoor by draining the bog, and in 1823 the duchy was abolished and the area joined the Stade region (Wikipedia, Worpswede).

Highlights

• The Modersohn-Becker works - paintings in the village museums.
• The Barkenhoff - Vogeler's Jugendstil house and its garden.
• The Café Worpswede - an expressionist brick building of 1925.
• The Teufelsmoor - the peat bog landscape the painters came for.

When to go

April to October; museums close Mondays and reduce hours in winter. Flat-bottomed peat barges run trips on the moor canals in season.

What to expect

The village is small and heavily geared to art visitors. Several museums each charge separately. The moor is drained farmland in much of its extent.

Nearby

Bremen lies southwest; the Teufelsmoor surrounds the village.

Key facts