Travel Talk
'Middle Europe'
8—' Hamburg and the Elbe'
K. H. ABSHAGEN
The Elbe winds its way for over seven hundred miles from Czecho-Slovakia across the German Plain to the North Sea. On its northern bank is Hamburg, the largest sea-port on the continent of Europe. The city owes its origin to the fact that in 808 Charlemagne built a fortress on its site as a defence against the Slavs. Three years later, moreover, was established a church which made Hamburg an important centre of the evangelisation of northern Europe. The latter part of the nineteenth century, however, was the period during which Hamburg developed into its present large proportions. This afternoon Dr. K. H. Abshagen is to tell listeners of this interesting city of contrasts-the old town laced with narrow canals and the modern town with its shipyards and up-to-date housing schemes and architecture.