Westerheversand Lighthouse

Westerheversand Lighthouse is located near Westerhever on the Eiderstedt Peninsula in Schleswig-Holstein. It was built in 1906 on a settlement mound about 1,000 metres from the dikes. A dwelling mound is a man-made mound of earth that serves to protect against flooding. The foundation of the tower consists of 127 wooden piles. Under the base is a reinforced concrete chamber, which served as a water reservoir for the drinking water supply for the lighthouse keepers and their families. The tower was built from 608 iron plates in the so-called tubbing method of construction. Other lighthouses along the North Sea coast have also been built in the same way. The advantages are low weight, short assembly time and low maintenance costs. Next to the lighthouse stand two keeper's houses, which now house a nature conservation station of the Wadden Sea National Park.

The lighthouse beacon, which is 41 metres above the ground, was operated by a carbon arc lamp from 1908 to 1974. It was replaced in 1975 by a modern 2000 watt short-arc lamp. The light has a range of 21 nautical miles (about 39 kilometres). It can still be seen at a distance of 55 kilometres, in good visibility even from the island of Helgoland. Since 1978 the lighthouse has no longer been operated by lighthouse keepers, but automatically from the Telecontrol Centre in Tönning. (Telecontrol Centres control technical equipment by remote control).

Westerheversand Lighthouse is probably the best-known lighthouse on the Schleswig-Holstein coast. With its symmetrically arranged houses, the building forms the typical image of a lighthouse. The ensemble is a popular tourist attraction and can be visited. Civil weddings also take place there. Since 1970 the tower and the two keeper’s houses have been part of an advertising campaign for the Jever Pilsener Brewery. The fact that an East Frisian brewery used a North Frisian photo motif for advertising was a sensation at the time. The NDR and a canned fish company also used the tower as an advertising motif. In the year 2005, the motif was in Germany part of the stamp series “Lighthouses”.