Tiergrotten – how everything started
In 1912 – Bremerhaven was well doing because of the fishery and shipping business – a new jetty should be built for the steamers of the Norddeutschen Lloyd. A waiting hall with restaurant and fish sales hall as well as an aquarium were planned to become an attraction. The deputation for ports and railways in Bremen agreed and so the Strandhalle with the North Sea Aquarium were erected being the germ cell of the Zoo am Meer. The senior assistant Dr. Heinrich Lübben undertook all arrangements with engagement and knowledge and on the 1st of August 1913 the opening took place. But Dr. Lübben wanted more than this and convinced the responsible persons of the town Bremerhaven of the necessity of extension. On June 24, 1928 the Tiergrotten opened their doors and like today the polar-bears, seals and sea-lions belonged to the attractions at that time. The Bremerhaven zoologists succeeded in a lot of unique breedings: 1932 breeding success with the spectacled penguins, 1933 the first rearing of a seal in human care, the legendary polar-bear breeding still taking an anterior rang with 29 polar-bears or later in the eighties the first rearing of Northern gannets in human care. In the beginning of the eighties the Tiergrotten were renamed Zoo am Meer but the Bremerhaven citizens still tenderly call their zoo the “Tiergrotten.
Head manager
1913–1931 Dr. Heinrich Lübben
1932–1934 Dr. Otto Stocker
1934–1953 Hermann Junker
1953–1972 Dr. Kurt Ehlers
1972–1980 Dr. Götz Ruempler
1980–2000 Dr. Rüdiger Wandrey
since 2001 Dr. Heike Kück
