The town hall and the scpulture

General information:

The town hall was the mint until 1639, then a school. Rebuilt as school (until 1811) in 1807 after destruction in 1793, then a district office (until 1823), district court (1857-1924), and town hall. Destroyed again in 1945. The rebuilding lasted until 1953. Wedding bells in the ridge turret.

The sculpture: On 9 July 1950, the first vote on a united Europe took place in Breisach which was still largely destroyed (in 1945, 85% of the town had been reduced to rubble). 96% of Breisach´s electorate voted for “overcoming political and economic borders within Europe, and the joining of European peoples to form a European federal state”. The European flag has flown here since then to commemorate this, and since 1951 the “Europalicht” (Light of Europe) has signaled Breisach´s early acknowledgement of a united Europe. The sculpture was created by the Breisach artist Helmut Lutz in July 2000 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the vote.

For more information visit: www.breisach.de / www.sternenweg.de