The Seven Lazy Brothers (die Sieben Faulen) are the heroes of a Bremen tale about seven brothers mocked as idlers who turn out to be clever inventors of easier ways to work. You can meet them twice in Böttcherstraße, the short Expressionist street between the Market Square and the river Weser: as seven figures on the gable of the House of the Seven Lazy Ones, and as seven terracotta figures on a brick fountain made by Bernhard Hoetger in 1927.
The Seven Lazy Brothers at a glance
- Where: Böttcherstraße in Bremen's old town. The house is on the right as you enter the street from the Market Square; the fountain stands in the courtyard of the Paula Modersohn-Becker House.
- Created: the tale was written by the Bremen author Friedrich Wagenfeld (1810–1846); the fountain dates from 1927; the house took its present name when it was rebuilt in 1954.
- By: Bernhard Hoetger made the fountain; the figures on the house gable are by the sculptor Aloys Röhr.
- What it is today: part of Böttcherstraße, a street of museums, workshops and shops that has been a protected monument since 1973.
- Time needed: 15 minutes for the house and the fountain, an hour or more for the whole street and its museums.
A Bremen tale and a coffee merchant's street
Wagenfeld's story is set outside the old town wall, on low, wet land near the Weser. A poor farmer has seven tall, strong sons who would rather idle than toil, so the neighbours call them the Seven Lazy Ones. Finding no work in Bremen, they go out into the world. Years later they come back with new ideas: they dig a ditch to drain the fields into the Weser, build a dyke against floods, pave a road, build houses along it, plant lime trees and dig a well. The neighbours still say they are lazy, too lazy to work in the mud, to clean their boots or to carry water from the river. The moral is that a little cleverness saves a lot of sweat.
Böttcherstraße itself is a 20th-century creation. Between 1922 and 1931 the coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius had the old coopers' lane rebuilt, with Bernhard Hoetger in charge of much of the artistic design. Hoetger's Seven Lazy Ones fountain went up in 1927 in the courtyard of the Paula Modersohn-Becker House. Bombing in 1944 destroyed large parts of the street, which was rebuilt by 1954; one of the reconstructed houses was then named after the seven brothers and given their figures on its gable.
What to look for
- The gable figures: seven upright figures of the brothers on the House of the Seven Lazy Ones. Step back to the other side of the street to see all seven.
- The fountain: a red-brick structure about five metres wide with seven terracotta brothers set in niches.
- The Town Musicians on the spout: the water runs from a bronze pipe crowned by the donkey, dog, cat and rooster of the Bremen Town Musicians.
- The Glockenspiel: between the gables of the House of the Glockenspiel hangs a carillon of Meissen porcelain bells. When it plays, a tower of carved wooden panels turns to show famous ocean crossers such as Columbus.
- The Lichtbringer: the gilded relief of 1936 by Hoetger above the entrance from the Market Square, showing a figure fighting a dragon.
Lazy or clever?
The name is older than the story. In Bremen there is a Faulenstraße, and in the Middle Ages the word described a dirty, unpaved street. Wagenfeld, who wrote down and invented many Bremen tales in the 1840s, turned this into a story about seven brothers. So the legend is a 19th-century invention, not a medieval chronicle, but it fits the city well: Bremen has always lived from trade and engineering on wet ground by the Weser.
Tips for your visit
- Böttcherstraße is narrow and busy in the middle of the day. Come in the morning for a quiet look at the house and the fountain.
- The Glockenspiel plays several times a day, more often from spring to the end of the year. Check the times posted in the street and plan your visit around one of them.
- Look up: many of the best details, including the seven brothers, are on the gables above the shop windows.
Nearby
- Market Square: Bremen's main square with the Town Hall and the Roland statue, together a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004, at the north end of Böttcherstraße.
- Bremen Town Musicians: the bronze statue by Gerhard Marcks (1953) beside the Town Hall. Visitors hold the donkey's front legs for luck.
- Schlachte: the riverside promenade along the Weser, just south of Böttcherstraße, with old ships, beer gardens and cafés.
- Schnoor: the oldest quarter, a maze of narrow lanes and tiny houses, about a ten-minute walk east.
See Bremen with World City Trail
Our Bremen scavenger hunt turns the old town into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops and takes around 2 hours, with about 34 minutes of walking. It includes Böttcherstraße and the Schlachte promenade. You can play in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish or Dutch.
If you prefer a different format, there is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Bremen.
Play the Bremen scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Bremen →
Play the outdoor escape game in Bremen →
Facts checked in October 2026.