The bronze statue of the four animals from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale stands beside the north wall of the Rathaus, added in 1953. The donkey stands at the bottom, the dog on its back, then the cat, and the rooster on top — the animals in the story formed a ladder to peep through a cottage window. The tradition is to rub the donkey's front hooves for good luck, which has given them a distinctive shiny gold patina.
The statue is the work of sculptor Gerhard Marcks. There is a smaller copy in Gdansk, Bremen's sister city, and another in China. It is more charming than monumental, and easy to miss among the larger buildings of the Marktplatz.