It was Carlzhein Hollmann’s idea and he thought about it when he looked out of a plane window while he was flying above Lake Geneva in Switzerland in 1986. The scenery surrounding the fountain on Lake Geneva is very similar to Hamburg’s Inner Alster Lake. When Hollmann arrived in Hamburg he told  his friend Eugen Wagner, who was a member of the Department of Urban Development and Housing. He supported the idea and they quickly found some sponsors for the fountain.

Taking Hamburg’s windy weather into consideration, they  decided that the height of the fountain can’t be as tall as the Jet d'eau (Geneva Water Fountain). 

At the beginning of November, due to the frost, the platform from which the fountain spouts is  dismantled and put into storage. Around Advent it is replaced by another platform, on which a large Christmas tree decorated with lights stands in the middle of the sometimes frozen lake.