The City Municipality of Bremen (German: Stadtgemeinde Bremen) is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the River Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen/Oldenburg Metropolitan Region (2.4 million people). Bremen is the second most populous city in Northern Germany and tenth in Germany.

Bremen is some 60 km (37 mi) south from the Weser mouth on the North Sea. With Bremerhaven right on the mouth the two comprise the state of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (official German name: Freie Hansestadt Bremen).

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Zweites Deutsches Bundesschießen in Bremen
Second German Federal shooting in Bremen

The Second German Federal shooting took place from 16 to 24 July 1865 in Bremen. The national shooting festival is one of the most momentous events of visitors who before the Empire took place in Germany and was characterized by exuberant patriotism. The festival site was subsequently used for conditioning the citizens parks .

Details
On the first German Federal Shooting 1862 in Frankfurt am Main Bremen, which the was Bremer rifle company , meetings held since 1846 shooting festivals of Bremer shooting club and its 600 members in the German Shooting Federation could have a remarkable tradition, has been elected to the venue in 1864. Enthusiasm and skepticism accompanied the preparations. On the eve of the German-Danish War , the festival was postponed for twelve months. The project was organized by a solid line from 311 citizens in Central and ten special committees. Many well-known personalities here Bremer engaged.

To finance a Aktienverein founded. 50,000 silver commemorative coins each worth one gold taler was officially coined. Otherwise, the thought Bremen Senate on distance, but he and the Bremen Parliament approved the transfer of Bürgerweide as festival grounds. Here planned Heinrich Müller court systems and the built of wood Festbauten. A central hall summed up 4300 people. The fairground lit 6000 gas candelabra. 150 shooting ranges have been created. On the 40,000 m² People's Square, a funfair excessive driving was built around a large exhibition hall, where the Bremen commercial presented his achievements in shipping, trade and production. Were among the attractions also indicative of the patriotic mood of the party, part of the work in Hermann monument , the Ernst von Bandel exhibited an admission fee to finance the completion.

5500 Foreign shooters had to stay in mass accommodation and private homes. In addition, many day visitors came as spectators. On July 17, we estimated the number of foreigners in Bremen to 14,000. From Oldenburg traveled 400 shooters from Hamburg 200, 70 from Berlin, 30 from Switzerland. 62 arriving from New York-born German shooters were on July 14 on the steamship Bremen received festive. 554 prizes and honorary gifts had arrived from German communities and clubs all over the world in Bremen, those of royal houses were hardly less. The running of the event suffered from logistical shortcomings and since the beginning of regular measurements unheard of heat.

Financially ended the company, the cost of which amounted to a quarter of a million dollars, with losses of 68,000 thalers.

Political character 
The 1860s were, apart from the strategies of the major powers and considered the consciousness of the bourgeoisie, marked by a growing desire for national unity. 1859 was German National Team was established, and the same desire to promote the unification movement and to make sure and encourage each other, brought numerous patriotic mass events such as Turner and song festivals forth. The in Bremen consuming committed to Schiller's 100th birthday celebration 1859 these same background. The patriotic excitement was in the years after the German-Danish war and one year before the final decision for a small German solution particularly high. However, in speeches and newspaper reports of the Federal shooting is little more than a dull homeland enthusiasm, military training and advertising fraternity rhetoric without concrete policy, let alone democratic goals. Looking back after the party we saw in Bremen sobered the result: "Moreover let the political development of the feast that had made the city with as much enthusiasm as a doubtful and useless demonstration appear" (Lührs).

Literature
Wilhelm Lührs: The Second German Federal shooting in Bremen (1865). In: Yearbook of Wittheit to Bremen. Volume 16 (= Festschrift Karl H. Schwebel), 1972, p 125-166.