The butcher's Market

Once you have walked from the market through the archway of the town hall, you find yourself at the Schlachtermarkt. Another market? In fact, Marktplatz and Schlachtermarkt have a common history. But from the 16th century onwards, the two squares developed differently from each other.

The area now known as the butcher's market has undergone many changes. In the Middle Ages, butchers, bakers and fishermen conducted lively trade on the market square around the town hall. Small craftsmen produced on site and then offered their goods for sale. The original town hall stood free; surrounded by the market area and permanent stalls of the craftsmen and traders. The archway of the town hall probably dates from this time.
In the 12th century, there was also a cemetery on this site - at about the level of the car park you see next to the bull fountain. A new building for a city history museum is to be constructed in this still unrenovated part in the coming years.

The butcher's market only developed in its open form from 1886 onwards. Due to population growth, the craftsmen's and merchants' stalls of the medieval market had been converted into residential buildings, crisscrossed by narrow alleys. These rows of houses burnt down several times and were also rebuilt. The largest town fire is said to have broken out here in 1651 in a blacksmith's shop. It was not until the end of the 19th century that the houses behind the town hall were demolished, a new square created and lime trees planted. Flowers and vegetables as well as other agricultural products from the surrounding area were then the main subject of trade at the market. So it was not because of the goods that the butcher's market got its name. Rather, the inhabitants simply named the square after the butcher's street. This runs on the opposite side of the town hall. The name only found its way into the official city plans later.

From folk song to fountain statue: Herr'n Pastor si'n Kau

Today, a beautiful fountain in the form of a bronze sculpture by the sculptor Stephan Horota stands on the butcher's market.  This sight can also be explored acoustically with CITYTOGO, but this much can already be revealed: The design of the fountain refers to motifs from the low german folk song „Herr'n Pastor si'n Kau“. In this song, a funny story is told about how the pastor's cow suddenly dies at Pentecost and almost all the inhabitants of the village get parts of it. From a Mecklenburg point of view, of the several hundred verses, the one that tells what happened to the cow's head is particularly interesting: „De Mekelborger leit nich slapen, se sett den Kopp in't Lanneswappen“ (The cow's head is in the Lannes coat of arms), the folk song says. This is an allusion to the bull's head, which still appears today in the coat of arms of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and in many town coats of arms in the area. If you want to hear the song: the chiming of the bells on the gable front of the town hall intones the refrain at 9 am, 12 pm and 5 pm.

The Lodge House and the Freemasons in Schwerin

Behind the Bull Fountain on the left, next to a large two-storey half-timbered house, you can see the representative entrance of the Schwerin Lodge House of the Freemasons. It is no coincidence that the facade design with the arched windows and the ochre-yellow colour is reminiscent to the front of the town hall. Master builder Georg Adolph Demmler was a Freemason and designed the facade himself. He bought the building and donated it to the Johannis Lodge „Harpokrates zur Morgenroethe“ in 1846. The lodge was expropriated in 1934 and received the building back after the end of the GDR. Today, the lodge „Eintracht in Freiheit“ and the association „Schlaraffia Suerina“ also use the lodge house as tenants. The lodge house is also open to visitors on the „Open Monument Day“ in September.

The new Synagogue depicts the Jewish history of the city

With the town hall behind it, the new synagogue is located at the opposite end of the butcher's market in a courtyard behind the brightly painted half-timbered houses. The Jewish community of Schwerin and Mecklenburg has existed since 1671. On the night of the pogroms in November 1938, the interior of the old synagogue was destroyed by vandalism. The congregation members were obliged to demolish their place of worship themselves in the weeks that followed. The systematic deportation and murder of Schwerin's Jewish citizens followed. Jewish life in Schwerin was almost wiped out. Only after the end of the GDR period did Schwerin's Jewish community expand again significantly. In 2008, the new synagogue was rebuilt on its historic site. The square clinker brick building has a friendly and bright interior and exudes a sense of security. Daylight inside the synagogue comes through skylights on the ceiling. The highlight of the room is the Torah shrine under the Star of David in the east wall of the place of worship.