The Beatles and Hamburg

THE BEATLES may have come from Liverpool, England – but they were made in Hamburg, Germany. That, at least, is the view of Allan Williams, the Fab Four's first manager and booking agent. It was Williams who drove the group, and five others, in an Austin Minivan onto the ferry at Harwich on 16 August, 1960, to the Hook of Holland, from where they travelled to what was once Germany's main seaport, the third largest in the world, before being reduced to rubble by bombing raids during World War II. By the time The Beatles arrived, Hamburg was notorious for its vice trade and other criminal activity.