Maritime heritage traces China's three-century-long Hamburg story

For many children, museums are where dreams take root. For Peter Tamm Senior, however, a dream sparked by a simple childhood gift gave root to a museum — one that now tells a global story of connection, including that of the East meeting the West.

That gift, a grayish-white ship model the size of a finger, was given to him by his mother in 1934 to lift his spirits after he caught the flu. Today, that tiny vessel rests on a navy blue velvet cushion in a glass case in the International Maritime Museum Hamburg, a legacy born from Tamm's lifelong passion for maritime history.

Born in 1928 into one of Hamburg's oldest seafaring families, Peter Tamm Senior (1928-2016) amassed one of the world's largest private maritime collections. He later donated it to a charitable foundation, leading to the founding of the IMMH in 2008.

The museum today is a landmark in Hamburg and a major attraction for maritime enthusiasts. With 10 floors — nine of which are exhibition "decks" — the IMMH houses nearly 60,000 artifacts, plus expansive photo and book collections. But beyond its scale, what makes it special is the way it brings together seafaring stories from around the world, especially those linking the East and the West.

One of the most striking symbols of East-West maritime connection is the bronze bust of Chinese explorer Zheng He (1371-1433), prominently displayed alongside six other legendary global navigators.

"Zheng He sailed all the way to East Africa with the largest fleet of its time. It's a fascinating story and the world should know about it," says Gerrit Menzel, a maritime historian and curator at IMMH.

The museum received a detailed model of Zheng He's flagship from Fujian province and the overseas Chinese community in Hamburg just months after it opened. Tamm Senior once described it as a valuable addition that affirms China's vital role in the shared story of global maritime history.

The legacy of East-West maritime ties continues into the modern era. Earlier this year, COSCO Shipping Lines Co donated a 2-meter-long model of a container ship based on a 400-meter-long blue vessel launched in 2018, one of the largest in the world.

"This great model of a 20,000 TEU(20-foot cargo-carrying capacity) container ship is actually our first 20,000 TEU container ship in the collection," says Menzel.

According to COSCO Shipping, the model represents the deep-rooted partnership between China and the Port of Hamburg. COSCO ships have been anchoring there since the 1970s, a continuation of a relationship that dates back nearly 300 years.

In 1731, the first Chinese merchant ship arrived in Hamburg. By the 19th century, Chinese seafarers had begun settling in the city's St. Pauli district, forming one of the earliest Asian communities in Germany. Today, China remains Hamburg's top trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching 2.2 million TEUs in 2024.

The museum not only illustrates East-West connections through maritime exhibits but also through ongoing research. In 2017, it launched the Qingdao Archive, a long-term project delving into the cultural and naval imprint Germany left in Qingdao, Shandong province, a major port city in eastern China once under German colonial rule.

Led by Menzel, the project collects personal items from German families whose ancestors lived in Qingdao from 1897 to 1914. "We want to prevent these things from being destroyed by young people who don't even know what they are," he says.

Menzel views the efforts as crucial to preserving shared memory — for education, research and future generations. He believes museums serve as vessels of memory, offering a space to reflect on the past to guide the future.

"That was always important to Mr Tamm," Menzel says, "to keep memories alive and learn from history, that bad things should not happen again, wrong things should not be repeated, and that the sea didn't divide us, but it brought us together."