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DISCOVER GERMANY

Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

With thousands of years of history in Germany to explore, you’re never going to run out of museums to scratch the itch to learn about and fully experience the world of the past.

Published: 5 April 2024 10:46 CEST
Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring
Come face to face with the knights of Guttenberg-Gemmingen at Burg Guttenberg. Photo: Burg Guttenburg

Here are eight of our favourite museums across Germany’s 16 states for you to discover for yourself. 

Arche Nebra

Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt

One day, around 1600 BCE, local Bronze Age peoples buried one of their most precious objects – the Nebra Sky Disk, a copper, gold, and bronze disk that acted as a calendar to help them plant crops. This was a matter of life and death at the time. 

Over three thousand years later, in 1999, it was uncovered by black market treasure hunters, becoming Germany’s most significant archaeological find. 

While the Sky Disk itself is kept in the (really very good)  State Museum of Pre- and Early History in nearby Halle, the site of the discovery is marked by the Arche Nebra, a museum explaining prehistoric astronomy and the cultural practices of the people who made it. 

Kids will love the planetarium, explaining how the disk was used. 

Atomkeller Museum

Halgerloch, Baden-Württemberg

From the distant to the very recent past – in this case, the Nazi atomic weapons programme. Even as defeat loomed, Nazi scientists such as Werner Heisenberg were trying to develop a nuclear bomb. 

While this mainly took place in Berlin, an old beer cellar under the town of Halgerloch, south of Stuttgart, was commandeered as the site of a prototype fission reactor. 

A squad of American soldiers captured and dismantled the reactor as the war ended. Still, the site was later turned into a museum documenting German efforts to create a working reactor – one that they could use to develop a bomb.

It’s important to note that you don’t need to be a physicist to understand what they were trying to do here, as the explanatory materials describe the scientist’s efforts in a manner that is easy to understand. 

German National Museum

Nuremberg, Bavaria

Remember that scene at the end of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, where an unnamed government official wheels the Ark of the Covenant into an anonymous government warehouse? This could possibly be the German equivalent – albeit far better presented. 

The German National Museum was created in 1852 as a repository for the cultural history of the German nation – even before the country’s founding. In the intervening 170 years, it’s grown to swallow an entire city block of Nuremberg, covering 60,000 years of history and hundreds of thousands of objects. 

If it relates to the history of Germany since prehistoric times, you’re likely to find it here.

Highlights include several original paintings and etchings by Albrecht Dürer, the mysterious Bronze Age ‘Gold Hats’, one of Europe’s most significant collections of costuming and musical instruments, and a vast display of weapons, armour and firearms. 

European Hansemuseum

Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein

In the late Middle Ages, the political and economic centre of the world was focused on the North Sea and the Baltic German coasts. 

This was the domain of the Hanseatic League, one of the most powerful trading alliances in human history. Centuries before the Dutch and British East India Companies, they made in-roads to far-flung corners.

The European Hansemuseum in the former Hanseatic city of Lübeck tells the story of the league’s rise and eventual fall, its day-to-day operations, and its enduring legacy.

This museum is fascinating for adults and kids. It uses original artefacts and high-tech interactive elements to tell tales of maritime adventure. Younger visitors will also be enchanted by the museum’s augmented reality phone app that asks them to help solve mysteries. 

Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum

Augsburg, Germany

The Hanseatic League was not the only economic power in the late Middle Ages. The Fugger and Welser families of Augsburg may have been the richest in the world until the 20th century.

From humble beginnings, both families grew to become incredibly powerful moneylenders, funding many of the wars of the 16th century and the conquest of the New World.

The Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum not only explains the rise of both patrician families but also the practices that led to their inconceivable wealth—including, sadly, the start of the Transatlantic slave trade. 

The museum also documents the short-lived Welser colony in Venezuela, which, if it had survived, could have resulted in a very different world history.

This museum has many high tech displays, making it a very exciting experience for moguls of any age.

Teutoburg Forest Museum

Kalkriese, Lower Saxony

Every German child learns this story at some point: One day at the end of summer 9 AD, three legions of the Roman army marched into the Teutoburg forest… and never came out. 

Soldiers sent after the vanished legions discovered that they had been slaughtered to a man.

Arminius, a German who had been raised as a Roman commander, had betrayed the three legions to local Germanic tribes, who ambushed them while marching through the forest. 

Today, the probable site of the battle – we can’t entirely be sure – is marked by a museum called the Varusschlacht Museum (Literally ‘Varus Battle Museum’, named after the loyal Roman commander). 

The highlights here are the finds – made all the more eerie by the knowledge that they were looted and discarded from the legionaries in the hours following the ambush. 

German Romanticism Museum

Frankfurt, Hesse

The Romantic era of art, music and literature is one of Germany’s greatest cultural gifts to the world, encompassing the work of poets such as Goethe and Schiller, composers like Beethoven and artists in the vein of Caspar David Friedrich.

Established in 2021 next to the house where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born, the German Romanticism Museum is the world’s largest collection of objects related to the Romantic movement. 

In addition to artefacts from some of the greatest names in German romanticism, in 2024, you’ll find a major exhibition exploring Goethe’s controversial 1774 novel, ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’, and another on the forest as depicted as dark and dramatic in the art of the period. 

Gutenberg Castle

Haßmersheim, Baden-Württemberg

Sometimes being a smaller castle is a good thing. The relatively small size and location of Guttenburg Castle, above the River Neckar near Heilbronn, protected it from war and damage over eight hundred years – it’s now the best preserved Staufer-era castle in the country.

While the castle is still occupied by the Barons of Gemmingen-Guttenberg, the castle now also contains a museum, that uses the remarkably well-preserved castle interiors to explore centuries of its history – and the individuals that passed through it.

After you’ve explored the museum—and the current exhibition that uses Lego to document life in the Middle Ages —it’s also possible to eat at the castle’s tavern and stay overnight!

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EVENTS

Seven unmissable events happening around Germany in May 2024

The weather is heating up and it feels like summer is just around the corner. Here are some events you can check out around Germany in May.

Published: 29 April 2024 16:46 CEST
Seven unmissable events happening around Germany in May 2024

There are interesting happenings to be found in Germany all year around, but for most of us living in the Bundesrepublik, there is something magical about the late spring season. 

With April’s last cold snap now firmly in the rearview, Germany seems to come alive again as the weather heats up and the trees fill out with fresh green foliage. With folk festivals on, beer gardens and restaurant patios opening up, and local parks filling up with picnickers and day-drinkers, it feels as if the whole country is emerging from hibernation. 

Here are a few events from around the country to keep you entertained this May.

Starting off with dancing into May and Germany’s Labour Day

To properly start off the month of May, many Germans start dancing in April.

Tanz in den Mai, or to ‘dance into May’, is a German tradition that is celebrated at folk festivals and dance parties around the country. Many of these events start on the evening on April 30th and last until the early hours of May 1st so that attendees can quite literally dance into the beginning of the month.

April 30th also happens to be Walpurgisnacht, which historically was a night for scaring away the witches, but in modern times is more often a night for dancing around open fires and related festivities.

May 1st, which falls on a Wednesday this year, is Labour Day in Germany – a national holiday. The German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) will be hosting a rally in Hanover, and Berlin’s annual Revolutionary May Day demo will be taking place in Neukölln and Kreuzberg.

READ ALSO: ‘Tag der Arbeit’: What to do on May 1st in Germany

For those who would rather party than rally on the holiday, there will be abundant opportunities for daytime dancing and drinking to be found.

May 1st to 5th – Baumblütenfest Werder

The 145th Tree Blossom Festival in Werder, on the Havel River about an hour outside of Berlin, is a celebration of the blossoming fruit trees and includes a carnival for five days at the start of May.

The focus for most visitors is on trying a number of locally produced fruit wines, and taking in the views of blossoms by the riverside.

Tours of blossoming trees in Werder’s courtyards and gardens begin at the end of April, and then the city’s carnival opens on May 1st. From May 3rd the carnival is expanded into a folk fest including larger live music stages and a large market.

The festival’s grand finale takes place on May 4th with a parade through the city centre, from 11am, led by the Tree Blossom Queen, and a fireworks display planned for the evening.

Rhine in Flames

The Rhine in Flames events offer visitors beautiful fireworks displays over the Rhine River Valley.

May 4th – Rhine in Flames in Bonn

The Rhine River Valley is commonly listed among Germany’s most scenic locations. 

Rhine in Flames, or Rhein in Flammen, offers visitors a chance to see the World Heritage Site of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley under the red glare of a magnificent fireworks display.

The entire Rhine in Flames event actually takes place over five nights, each at a different city on the Rhine River, with the dates spanning from early spring to autumn. But this year’s event will kick off on May 4th with a fireworks display that will be visible from the shores of the river between Bonn and the neighbouring town of Linz.

More information can be found at the event’s website.

May 9th – 12th – Hafengeburtstagsfest in Hamburg 

Hamburg’s Port Anniversary fest amounts to a colourful celebration by the water, complete with a beautiful firework display.

The best views of the Port of Hamburg and the Hafengeburtstagsfest are found along the Jan-Fedder-Promenade. Here stalls are set-up along the harbour mile, selling foods and local delicacies.

From the Landungsbrücken, you can watch the event’s top attractions including Friday evening’s ‘Elbe in Concert’ with a fireworks show and Saturday’s ‘magical light illumination’ presented by AIDA cruises.

There are also water parades, including the world’s only tugboat ballet, where guests can witness a pirouette performed at 3000 horsepower.

May 12th – 19th: International Dixieland Festival

Jazz fans might be surprised to learn that Dresden’s International Dixieland Festival is Europe’s oldest festival for old-timey jazz music.

This year’s lineup is full of both German and international (mostly European) bands and soloists, including: the Brass Band Rakovnik from the Czech Republic, the Louis Armstrong Celebration Band from the Netherlands, and Mama Shakers from France, among many others.

The Dixieland Fest website does note that the event overlaps with several other large events in Dresden, so affordable accommodation may become scarce. 

Festival attendees are advised to make bookings early, and to look at accommodation options around the city along major S-bahn lines. (Which is actually a good tip for travelling in Germany in the summer in general.)

Visitors hold up their beer mugs at one of Germany’s many beer festivals. Photo: Christof STACHE/AFP

May 16th – 27th: Erlangen’s ‘Der Berg’ Fest

If you’re already dreaming of Oktoberfest, May has a number of spring beer fests in villages across Germany, and especially in Bavaria.

One such fest is Erlangen’s Der Berg (The Mountain), so named because it takes place on the town’s tallest hill.

Erlangen is a small town in central Germany near Nuremberg. It happens to be the German village that is furthest from the sea, but that doesn’t stop Der Berg from having some fried fish sandwiches on offer.

READ ALSO: Five reasons foreigners should move to Nuremberg

Der Berg is certainly significantly smaller than Munich’s world renowned Oktoberfest, but it offers similar attractions – including carnival rides, jubilant sings and dancing, and of course local beers served up in a big litre Maßkrug.

May 29th-June 6th: Würzburger Weindorf

For all the aspiring sommeliers and oenophiles, Würzburg’s annual ‘Wine Village’ offers a pleasant way to end the fifth month in 2024 – or to drink your way into June.

It may be little known beyond Germany, but Würzburg is proud of its centuries-old winemaking tradition, which dates back to the Middle Ages. If that’s news to you, then the Würzburger Weindorf is among the best events for an introduction to Franconian viticulture.

Here you can try wine varietals that you may not have heard of before, such as the Müller-Thurgau or the sparkling Scheurebe, and you can pair your tastings with hearty Franconian faire, like Würzburg bratwurst or local dumplings.

This year the festival kicks off on Wednesday May 29th at 5pm, and then is open daily from 11am to 11:30pm.

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