CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Warnemünde Lighthouse

lighthouse in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2025
Entity authorityQ1697562
Source-derived summary

Warnemünde Lighthouse is a lighthouse situated on the Unterwarnow, the estuary of the Warnow river, in Warnemünde, a district in the city of Rostock. The lighthouse has a height of 36.9 metres (121 ft) and was put into service in 1898.

Planning

In 1862 it was decided to replace the old 8-metre-high storm lamp in Warnemünde with a new lighthouse. The construction of the lighthouse was officially approved in 1863, however, as a result of serious disagreement between its financiers, the town of Rostock, the district administrator (estates of the country: parliament of patricians and knights) and the Mecklenburg railways (the latter had owned the ferry boat route to Gedser in Denmark since 1886), the project did not actually start until 1897. It was commissioned one year later in October 1898. The building was planned and erected by the director of harbour construction, Friedrich Kerner.

Construction

33 posts were piled 11 metres deep into the earth to act as the foundation. The lighthouse has two cellars and the part above ground is 31 metres high and built of glazed white brick and a number of bands of green brick. The tower has two galleries used as panoramic viewing platforms for visitors.

In the early years, the lighthouse lamp used petroleum and later gas to generate its light.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Warnemünde Lighthouse” is lighthouse in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Warnemünde, Lighthouse and lighthouse, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1898, 1862, 1863, 1886—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1898. For this dossier, Warnemünde, Lighthouse and lighthouse is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “lighthouse in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1697562. VIAF identifies the subject as 1719153363082037520004. Authority coordinates are 54.181, 12.086. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1898, 1862, 1863 and 1886.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Warnemünde Lighthouse”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Warnemünde Lighthouse primary sources, Warnemünde Lighthouse archive and Warnemünde research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Warnemünde Lighthouse”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Warnemünde Lighthouse” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.