You wouldn’t guess it while visiting Chemnitz, Germany, but the Roter Turm (red tower) is considered the town’s landmark. It is a tower standing close to the city center which was built as a bergfried in the 12th century. Later it was included into the city fortifications and used as a prison. August Bebel (one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party in Germany) was one of the well-known ‘guests’ there, but that’s not the reason for the name: the material used to build it (tuff) has a red colour by nature. The fame of this building roots in the fact that it is older than Chemnitz and older than the city of Dresden.
The tower contains a small museum and is visited especially on guided tours. The shape of the tower is well-known for you if you ever used the washing-up liquid ‘fit‘ which was produced in the GDR and is today also available everywhere in Germany. The shape of the bottle was created after the shape of the Roter Turm, because this product was once produced by the VEB Fettchemie Karl-Marx-Stadt at todays Chemnitz. Check it out when you’re shopping for groceries in Germany next time…
Roter Turm
Chemnitz
Germany
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