AWCH The Museum for Hamburg History

For the first time the AWCH will hold its annual general meeting in a museum. Prior to the meeting, Peter Z will take club members on a unique guided tour in English.

The Museum for Hamburg History (Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte) dates back to 1849 when “old stuff” was housed in Hamburg’s oldest high school, the Johanneum Gymnasium (founded in 1529). The collection grew and was assigned to the Office of Education in 1853. The Association for Hamburg History, founded in 1893, took these things and compiled the first official “collection of Hamburg antiques.” Finally, in 1906 Parliament granted the group permission to establish a municipal museum of Hamburg history. The famous architect Fritz Schumacher (Johanneum, Lerchenfeld art school, Institute for Tropical Medicine) built the present museum in eight years, 1912-1920, to open in 1922. Considerable damage during the war required repairs, including a new roof in 1946. The glass roof over the courtyard was added in 1989. Original elements of old Hamburg buildings to be demolished have been saved by being incorporated into the actual façade of the building, e.g., a war-damaged portal of the Petri Kirche (St. Peter’s Church) was put into the building in 1995.

The largest museum of history in Germany, it has exhibits on four floors from Hamburg’s earliest beginnings as the Hamma (“banks of a river”) Burg (“fortress”) in the year 832 A.D. You can trace the phases of Hamburg through the Hanseatic League, the Plague, the Great Fire, revolution and war. There are coins, paintings, fashions, whole rooms furnished like olden times, model ships, relics from Jewish history and the “model train with the longest track in Europe” (although this may be outdated, since the creation of the model train in the Speicherstadt). Before you take a real walk with Peter Z, prepare yourself with a virtual walk through the museum at www.hamburgmuseum.de. Click “English” and off you go.