Top 10 Windmills in Germany
Germany's windmill heritage is concentrated in the flat, wind-swept north — the coastal marshes of East Frisia, the Wendland, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg — where the Dutch-style gallery smock mill (Galerieholländer) became the standard form. Inland and in the south, timber post mills (Bockwindmühlen) and the occasional stone tower mill survive. At the trade's peak in the 19th century Germany counted more than thirty thousand windmills; perhaps a thousand survive today, of which several hundred are preserved as monuments and a few dozen still grind. These ten span the country's regional types and the best places to see them turning.
A short history of German wind milling
The post mill arrived in northern Germany in the 13th century, spreading from the Baltic and North Sea coasts inland along the great grain plains. For centuries the Bockwindmühle — its entire body turned to the wind on a single oak post — was the dominant form, especially in Brandenburg, Saxony and the east. From the 17th century Dutch influence brought the smock mill and then the gallery mill, in which only the cap rotates and the miller works the sails from a raised platform; this became the signature mill of the northern coasts. Industrialisation, the roller mill and rural depopulation ended commercial wind milling by the early 20th century, and the world wars destroyed many survivors. The German mill-preservation movement, organised through the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Mühlenkunde and countless local Mühlenvereine, has since restored hundreds, and German Mill Day (Deutscher Mühlentag), held each Whit Monday, opens them to the public.
1. Bockwindmühle Dütschow, Mecklenburg
One of the oldest working post mills in Germany, the Dütschow mill dates in part to the 17th century and turns its whole timber body on a central oak post in the classic medieval manner. Restored and maintained by a dedicated society, it is a touchstone of the German post-mill tradition and grinds rye on demonstration days in the Mecklenburg countryside.
2. Zwillingsmühlen, Greetsiel (East Frisia)
The twin gallery mills of Greetsiel — one painted red, one green — stand at the edge of this picture-postcard fishing village on the North Sea coast. The red mill, built in 1856, still grinds and houses a café; the green mill dates from 1706. Together they are among the most photographed mills in all of Germany and define the East Frisian windscape.
3. Mühle Bardowick, Lower Saxony
This towering Galerieholländer near Lüneburg, restored to full working order, demonstrates the scale the gallery mill could reach on the rich grain plains south of the Elbe. Its raised gallery and large sails are typical of the prosperous commercial mills that fed the Hanseatic towns.
4. Britzer Mühle, Berlin
A Dutch-style gallery mill of 1865 in the Britz district, rebuilt after wartime damage, the Britzer Mühle grinds rye and wheat and sells its own flour — a fully working mill inside the German capital. A resident miller demonstrates the trade, and the surrounding park makes it one of the most accessible mills in any European capital.
5. Bockwindmühle Cottbus, Brandenburg
This open-air-museum post mill in the Spreewald region preserves the timber technology of the Lusatian plain, with its whole body turned to the wind by a long tail pole. It anchors a collection of Sorbian rural buildings and grinds on event days, illustrating the eastern German post-mill heartland.
6. Mühlenmuseum Gifhorn, Lower Saxony
The International Wind- and Watermill Museum at Gifhorn assembles full-scale mills from across Europe, including a Greek island mill, a Portuguese mill and a Russian post mill, alongside the local German Holländer. It is the single best place in the country to compare mill types side by side.
7. Amrum Windmill, North Frisian Islands
The 1771 mill on the island of Amrum, with its distinctive cap, is now a museum of island life and one of the few mills set among the dunes of the Wadden Sea coast. It tells the story of how remote island communities ground their own grain before mainland supply.
8. Pelzerhaken Mill, Schleswig-Holstein
This Baltic-coast gallery mill near Neustadt in Holstein grinds on demonstration days and anchors the northern milling landscape between the Baltic dunes and the hinterland fields, a fine example of the region's 19th-century commercial mills.
9. Klostermühle, Saxony-Anhalt
A restored tower mill on the dry plains east of the Harz mountains, illustrating the stone construction less common in timber-rich northern Germany. It marks the transition zone between the coastal smock-mill country and the post-mill east.
10. Windmühle Lechtingen, Osnabrück
A 19th-century Galerieholländer restored by a local society in Lower Saxony, grinding and milling for visitors. It is typical of the volunteer-run mills that keep Germany's wind-milling tradition alive in the western lowlands.
Explore on the map
Every mill above is plotted on the interactive map. Filter for Germany to trace the great arc of gallery mills along the North Sea and Baltic coasts, then compare them with the inland post mills of Brandenburg and Saxony and the comprehensive museum collection at Gifhorn.
The best single day to see German mills in motion is the Deutscher Mühlentag on Whit Monday, when several hundred wind- and watermills across the country open their doors and set their sails. Outside that date, the coastal mills of East Frisia and Schleswig-Holstein generally keep the most reliable summer opening hours, while the inland post mills are often run by volunteers with limited schedules. Pairing the map with the local Mühlenverein calendars is the surest way to plan a route that catches the sails actually turning.
A well-planned German mill tour might begin on the North Sea at Greetsiel, run south through the gallery-mill country of Lower Saxony to the museum at Gifhorn, then cross the former inner-German border to the post-mill landscapes of Brandenburg and Mecklenburg, finishing in Berlin at the working Britzer Mühle. Such a route crosses the full historical and technical range of German wind milling — from the tallest commercial Holländer to the humblest village Bockwindmühle — and shows how closely mill type follows geography, soil and the prevailing wind. For many visitors the mills are also a way into the wider rural heritage of northern Germany, standing as they do beside thatched farmhouses, dyke systems and the open skies that made them possible.