Special lighthouses: Westerheversand – a navigational mark as a landmark

The Brandenburg Gate, Neuschwanstein Castle, the mist-shrouded lowlands of the Black Forest and its sun-drenched heights: what do all these places have in common? They are among Germany’s most famous sights – both at home and abroad. No promotional film or travel guide can do without these landmarks. The north has no such tourist heavyweights and must appeal in other ways – with picture-perfect maritime charm: the Westerheversand lighthouse.

A cliché in a striped dress

No German navigation mark is better known than Westerheversand. It effortlessly outshines even such icons as Cape Arkona on Rügen and Roter Sand in the Outer Weser. Appearance is everything here: the slender tower with its red-and-white striped paintwork and the two flanking Frisian keepers’ cottages embodies the modern cliché of a lighthouse so perfectly that the mere sight of it triggers sensory associations: the salty air on your lips, the cries of seagulls in your ears, and so on.

• ​Name: Westerheversand Lighthouse, Eiderstedt, Germany
• Location: North Sea
• Coordinates: 54°22'24"N; 008°38'24"E
• Tower height: 40 m
• Flame height: 41 m
• Reference number: (3) WRG15s.

Just one of three brothers

For the greater part of its history, however, Westerheversand led a far more mundane existence, as is the norm for the vast majority of lighthouses. It is fitting, then, that today’s lighthouse is not an ‘only child’. It has two brothers, one in Hörnum on Sylt and one on Pellworm. All three were built according to similar plans and in the same style from cast-iron plates in 1906 and 1907.

​​​Here you will find even more special lighthouses.

The Westerheversand lighthouse came into operation in 1908, serving as a navigational light for the waters north-west of the Eiderstedt peninsula and as a cross-marker light for ships approaching Husum and Pellworm via the Wadden Sea. Its technology and performance improved over time, evolving from a carbon-arc lamp to a high-pressure xenon lamp. In 1978, the last keepers left and the tower was automated.

Like a pilgrimage

So far, so ordinary: and yet Westerheversand shone brighter than other lighthouses along the local coastline – particularly in a figurative sense. Perhaps what makes it so special is that it stands completely alone, like a monument, amidst vast marshlands and can only be reached on foot, as if on a pilgrimage.

It may well be, however, that he owes his fame simply to the fact that a major North German brewery used him as the face of its advertising campaign for years in the 1980s. That said, it must also be noted that, without his striking good looks, he certainly would not have been cast in that role...

Today, the two former keepers’ houses are dedicated to nature conservation. They house an information centre for the Wadden Sea National Park. Anyone wishing to see the view can climb the tower and look out from the gallery below the lantern, far beyond the sea dyke. Complete with salty air and (sometimes) screeching seagulls.

​Here you will find even more special lighthouses.