The Copper Beech of Alsterufer
Ask how thick this beech is and you get three answers, all of them correct. Taped at waist height in November 2018 it came to 7.21 metres, a figure the citywide tree list and the independent register at baumkunde.de match to the centimetre. Measured again on 31 July 2025 it gave 7.32 metres across the buttresses at the base and 6.92 metres a metre higher up. The trunk is swollen, buttressed and covered in the raised tissue an old tree grows over its own wounds, so where you put the tape decides the number. Nobody recorded when it was planted. The estimate from its girth is 1870 with twenty years either way, so roughly 135 to 175 years, which is a band rather than a date and is stated here as one. It stands on the open lawn between the Alsterufer and Klein Fontenay, on the promenade along the Aussenalster, with grass and a footpath between it and the water. What the 2025 re-measurement really records is that somebody is still checking on it: this beech is monitored, healthy, and free to walk up to at any hour.
Autumn colour
October, when the purple leaves turn copper before they fall
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Rasenfläche Alsterufer / Klein Fontenay, 20144 Hamburg-RotherbaumThe big beech standing alone on the lawn between Alsterufer and Klein Fontenay, its base swollen and buttressed where it meets the grass. Dark purple leaves in season.
Free, public lawn on the Alster promenade (Alsterufer), open at all times.
U1 Hallerstraße or bus to Rothenbaumchaussee; roughly 5-10 min walk along the Alsterufer
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
