Night Watchman star of Rothenburg
Tour guide Hans-Georg Baumgartner in his role as the Night Watchman in Rothenburg, Germany. Baumgartner gives tourists a taste of what life was like centuries ago in the medieval walled town, while carrying a hellebarde, a long, hooked spear that watchman used for protection while making their nightly rounds.
ROTHENBURG OB DER TAUBER, Germany - Cloaked in black and brandishing a deadly medieval weapon, Hans-Georg Baumgartner strides purposefully into Market Square at dusk. The crowd parts — not out of fear, but fascination. Cameras flash.
Meet the Night Watchman, a lowly figure in this town centuries ago, but in Baumgartner’s incarnation a tour guide with a rock-star aura and a wit so calculatingly clever he’s been called a medieval Jerry Seinfeld.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Baumgartner’s Watchman tour has helped make Rothenburg — Germany’s best-preserved walled town and the jewel of the medieval trade route known as the Romantic Road — one of the country’s most popular tourist sites.
Rick Steves, the ubiquitous Europe travel impresario savvy in what American tourists will pay to see, calls the watchman tour “flat-out the most entertaining hour of medieval wonder anywhere in Germany.”
