Great fire of Hamburg

It killed 51 people and destroyed 1,700 residences and several important public buildings, necessitating major civic rebuilding and prompting infrastructure improvements.

The fire began in Eduard Cohen's cigar factory at Deichstraße 42 or 44 early in the morning of 5 May 1842; a neighbour alerted the night watch at about 1 a.m.[1] It quickly spread to number 25, across the street.

Some buildings were blown up in an attempt to create firebreaks, including the old Rathaus (city hall), originally built in 1290; 18 wagonloads of records were salvaged from it first.

[14] Almost 7 million marks was raised in an international appeal to help the survivors, in which the largest donors were Tsar Nicholas I of Russia and King Louis Philippe of France.

[18] A Technical Commission was established; a British engineer, William Lindley, proposed a reconstruction plan that was adopted with modifications (maintaining property lines rather than straightening all the streets) and designed a project to drain and develop the Hammerbrook area,[19] which was built up with rubble from the fire.

[20] (Lindley had already been involved in planning the city's first railroad connection, the Hamburg-Bergedorf Railway Company, which had been due to open on May 7 and instead was put in service two days early to bring firefighters from elsewhere and evacuate survivors.).

[19] Building with wood was no longer permitted, firewalls and fireproof gables were mandated and regulations applied to chimneys and sources of ignition, and streets were widened.

[21] Merchants increasingly built separate warehouses near the docks, moved their residences to the suburbs, and from the 1880s on, constructed dedicated buildings called Kontorhäuser for their businesses.

[27] The private Gothaer Feuer (Gotha Fire) had to have 250,000 thalers in coins shipped to Hamburg to satisfy claimants who insisted on payment in Prussian currency.