German Order Museum

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German Order Museum
Chapter House in the Teutonic Order Museum Bad Mergentheim. 06.jpg
Chapter House in the Teutonic Order Museum
Data
place Bad Mergentheim
opening 1864
Number of visitors (annually) 30,000
operator
Deutschordensmuseum GmbH
management
Maike Trentin-Meyer MA
Website
ISIL DE-MUS-008217

The Teutonic Order Museum is located in the Teutonic Order Castle in Bad Mergentheim in Baden-Württemberg . It presents the history of the Teutonic Order, the town history of Mergentheim, the Mörike cabinet, the Neolithic section in the Taubertal, a dolls house collection and the Adelsheim antiquity collection.

Mergentheim Castle was a branch of the Teutonic Order since 1219 and the residence of the high and German masters of the Teutonic Order from 1525 to 1809 . The museum's roots go back to 1864, and it has been housed in the castle since 1927. The state of Baden-Württemberg had parts of the castle rebuilt and restored from 1988 to 1996, so that the Teutonic Order Museum has had the entire area of ​​the High Castle at its disposal since 1996, where the Teutonic Order Museum was reopened with around 3000 m² of exhibition space.

History of the museum

17th century minneebox from the Adelsheim collection

In 1864 Baron Carl Joseph von Adelsheim (1790–1864) bequeathed his rich antiquity collection to the town of Mergentheim. It was presented for 63 years in a room in the town hall and supplemented by donations and purchases for the municipal antiquity collection. From 1927 this expanded collection was exhibited in five rooms, in the hallway and in the chapter room on the second floor of the former residence palace of the high and German masters of the Teutonic Order, which the city administration had rented from the Württemberg state for this purpose. The first volunteer museum curator was Karl Fleck (1862–1944), who set up the exhibition in the castle.

The association Bezirksheimatmuseum eV , founded in 1930, was used by the city of Mergentheim to support the museum and received the city's antiquity collection on permanent loan. The association subsequently expanded the collections to include "historical and natural history objects" and organized special exhibitions, lectures and guided tours.

Edwin Beyer was the museum curator from 1937 to 1950. During his tenure, the collections were rearranged and the exhibition expanded to a total of eight rooms. In 1950 Karl Heck (1888–1975) took over the management of the museum. A new focus of the museum's work was now - in addition to the presentation of local and further local history - the history of the Teutonic Order. In 1961 a "Deutschordensmuseum" was opened as part of the district home museum. Fritz Ulshöfer took over the museum management in 1969. He opened with advice u. a. by the art historian Max Hermann von Freeden , the then director of the Mainfränkisches Museum in Würzburg, the museum was rebuilt in mid-1973. Since then, the diverse collections have been presented under the name Deutschordensmuseum . In the same year, a large part of the Johanna Kunz dollhouse collection came to the castle on permanent loan from the state of Baden-Württemberg .

On July 1, 1991, the sponsorship of the association Deutschordensmuseum Bad Mergentheim eV , which has been headed by Gernot-Uwe Dziallas since 1995, was transferred to the Deutschordensmuseum Bad Mergentheim GmbH . The Museum GmbH is owned by the state of Baden-Württemberg, the city of Bad Mergentheim, the Association of the Deutschordensmuseum eV and the Main-Tauber district. Since then, full-time employees have been running the museum. Albert Boesten-Stengel headed the museum until the end of 1995, then the art historian Regina Hanemann. Since January 2000 the art historian Maike Trentin-Meyer has been the museum director and managing director of the Teutonic Order Museum.

Exhibition areas

Audience room in the new princely apartment

German medal

The history of the Teutonic Order from its beginnings to the present day is presented with works of art and objects, pictures, texts and maps. The Teutonic Order was founded in 1190 during the Crusades as a hospital order in front of Acre in the Holy Land . In the 13th century, a powerful Teutonic Order state was established in what would later become East Prussia . Since the 15th century the order lost its political importance. In 1809 the order was repealed in the states of the Rhine Confederation . Since then it has been directed from Vienna . It was renewed and is now a clerical order. The department “German Order Today since 1809” has been highlighting the development of the Order in the 19th and 20th centuries in a new concept and introduces the Order of the 21st century. It shows how the order was affected by historical developments such as secularization , World War I and World War II , reconstruction and much more. Particular attention is paid to the distorted image of the medieval order's history, which through ideological abuse since Treitschke, especially until 1945, has obscured the view of the order until today.

City history

The history of Bad Mergentheim is shown from the time as a Franconian settlement to the spa town. The Teutonic Order, which has been based since 1219, received city ​​rights in 1340 under Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian and ruled the city until 1809. The museum presents evidence of religious life in the city, objects from trade and industry, the history of the Jewish community and its development as a spa . Since 2011, a selection by the Jewish artist Hermann Fechenbach (who had to emigrate in 1938), whose extensive artistic estate is looked after by the museum, has been shown in a separate department .

A large diorama with over 2,000 pewter figures depicts the battle of Herbsthausen near Mergentheim during the Thirty Years' War . The staging of the Mergentheimer Engel pharmacy, with a baroque prescription table and scale holder from 1746, has also been on view since 2005.

Mörike Cabinet

Housekeeping book Mörikes

The poet Eduard Mörike and his sister Klara lived in Mergentheim from 1844 to 1851 . The housekeeping book, which provides information about the everyday life of the Mörikes, is evidence of this time. During this time the "Idylle vom Bodensee" and new poems were written. In 1851 Mörike married the officer's daughter Margarethe Speeth in the castle church. The Mörike Cabinet has been remembering this time since 2004.

Adelsheim's antiquity collection

In 1864, Baron Carl Joseph von Adelsheim donated his collection of “antiquities” to the city of Mergentheim. The district home museum, the forerunner of today's museum, developed out of this. Today the collection forms a separate department in the Teutonic Order Museum. The Adelsheim antiquity collection consists of medieval sculpture and panel painting, exotic pieces, faience , alabaster and marble reliefs from the Renaissance and Baroque periods , valuable small pieces of furniture with inlays , ivory carvings, handicrafts and curiosa.

Dollhouse collection

40 doll kitchens , dolls' rooms and houses and shops (pharmacies, spice and general stores, hat shops and fabric shops) from the 19th and 20th centuries tell of life in the past. They were collected by Johanna Kunz (1910–2002) mainly in the Swabian region in order to preserve evidence of a perished culture after the damage of the Second World War. The objects are revealing documents of cultural history . Showpieces of this collection are a bonnet shop from the Biedermeier period from around 1830, a doll's house from 1858 and a toy shop from 1930. This collection is supplemented e.g. B. through a paper theater, around 1900, a large walk-in pharmacy shop, around 1880, and a Japanese shop from the beginning of the 20th century.

4,500 years ago. At home in the Taubertal - Neolithic department in the Taubertal

Althausen stool grave in the museum

In May 2015, the new museum section “4,500 years ago. At home in the Taubertal ” . It represents the living conditions of people in the late Neolithic period in the region is the. Tauber has on the one hand the highest Fund density from the time of the Corded Ware throughout southern Germany at the same time there is for the transition to the Bronze Age in the Tauber Valley so far only a single metal Fund; both are presented in the new department.

The highlight of the exhibition is the stool grave discovered in Althausen near Bad Mergentheim in 1939 (around 2,500 BC) with four human skeletons, which has found its final resting place in the new department. Another special feature of the Taubertal is represented by the presentation of a trephined skull. The Deutschordensmuseum is the only museum that shows this surgical technique. By 2014 eight healed trepanations (head openings) had been discovered in the Taubertal, this speaks for the great artistry of the local Stone Age surgeons, one can speak of a kind of "surgeon school" in the Taubertal.

activities

The museum offers a rich program of events for children and adults as well as several special exhibitions each year. For example, in 1997 an exhibition about the Mergentheim artist Hermann Fechenbach (1897–1986) was prepared, and in 1999 the exhibition “Magic of the Tauber. Views from a romantic valley ”. Exhibitions on the subject of toys could be shown ("Shops. World of goods in children's play", "Barbie World. From the German Miss Wonder to a cult object all over the world", "Technology, fascination, play. Historic railways", "Toys & stuff of the 50s") . Photo exhibitions such as B. “Traces of Power. The transformation of people through the office ”with photographs by Herlinde Koelbl or“ animal photos by the nature photographer Fritz Pölking ”found their audience. The museum made a name for itself with numerous art exhibitions by Arik Brauer , Johann Elias Ridinger and Alfred Hrdlicka (from the Würth Collection), classical modernism from the Brabant Collection, the Junge Wilde and art in the GDR (from the National Gallery in Berlin) . But the Duckomenta , the graphics by Walter Moers , Ötzi , the Ice Man or “Fascination Universe” and cultural-historical exhibitions also attracted visitors to the museum.

Since 1972 there has been a series of “Museum Concerts in the Castle”, including the “Quartonal” ensemble. The series is organized by the association “Deutschordensmuseum e. V. ". in cooperation with Deutschordensmuseum GmbH and the city of Bad Mergentheim.

As a result of the establishment of the Mörike Cabinet in 2004, the “Literature in the Castle” series was launched. The curator is Ulrich Rüdenauer , cooperation partner of the Mergentheim bookstore Moritz and Lux.Rüdiger Safranski , Roger Willemsen , Judith Hermann , Martin Walser , Annette Pehnt , Helmut Böttiger , Arno Geiger , Wilhelm Genazino , Peter Kurzck , Sibylle Lewitscharoff , Terézia Mora , Ingo Schulze , Lutz Seiler , Arnold Stadler , Feridun Zaimoglu , Hanns Zischler and many more were already guests in the series.

literature

(in chronological order)

  • Klemens Mörmann (ed.): The German museum guide in color. Museums and collections in the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin. Book guild Gutenberg, Frankfurt am Main / Olten / Vienna 1983, DNB 870131540 , pp. 80–81.
  • 800 years of the German Order 1190–1990. Deutschordensmuseum, Bad Mergentheim 1990, DNB 930601491 .
  • Johanna Kunz: Nice old dollhouses. 2nd Edition. Kunstverlag Weingarten, Weingarten 1991, ISBN 3-8170-1006-0 .
  • Hans-Peter Trenschel: Teutonic Order Castle Bad Mergentheim with Castle Church and Teutonic Order Museum . 8th edition. Schnell & Steiner, Munich / Regensburg 1993, DNB 944157475 .
  • Maike Trentin-Meyer (Ed.): German Order 1190–2000. A guide through the Teutonic Order Museum in Bad Mergentheim. Spurbuchverlag, Baunach 2004, ISBN 978-3-88778-212-2 .
  • Regina Hanemann: Mergentheim Castle with the Teutonic Order Museum. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin / Munich 2006, ISBN 3-422-02027-6 .
  • Maike Trentin-Meyer (Ed.): Mörikes Mergentheimer Years. To the Mörike cabinet in the German Order Museum. Spurbuchverlag, Baunach 2007, ISBN 978-3-88778-312-9 .
  • Maike Trentin-Meyer (Ed.): Living order with great tradition. The history of the Teutonic Order from 1190 to the present day. Spurbuchverlag, Baunach 2012, ISBN 978-3-88778-359-4 .
  • Maike Trentin-Meyer (Ed.): Dolls' houses 1890–1970. Collection of the Teutonic Order Museum Bad Mergentheim. Deutschordensmuseum, Bad Mergentheim 2012, DNB 103386840X .
  • 150 years of the museum in Mergentheim, favorite objects, friends. German Order Museum , Bad Mergentheim 2014, DNB 1070319422 .
  • Treasures of the Teutonic Order. Deutschordensmuseum, Bad Mergentheim 2016, ISBN 978-3-00-037755-6 .
  • State Office for Museum Care Baden-Württemberg , Museum Association Baden-Württemberg eV (Hrsg.): Museums in Baden-Württemberg. 7th, completely revised edition. Theiss, Stuttgart 2018, ISBN 978-3-8062-2629-4 , p. 36.

Web links

Commons : Deutschordensmuseum  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoph Bittel: From the District Home Museum to the Teutonic Order Museum - 75 years of the museum association in Bad Mergentheim. In: 75 years of the Association of the Deutschordensmuseum Bad Mergentheim e. V. 1930-2005. Association of the German Order Museum Bad Mergentheim e. V., Bad Mergentheim 2005, pp. 7-40.
  2. ↑ Maike Trentin-Meyer (ed.), Udo Arnold (text): Deutscher Orden 1190-2000. A guide through the Teutonic Order Museum in Bad Mergentheim. Spurbuchverlag, Baunach 2006, ISBN 3-88778-212-7 .
  3. ^ Hermann Fechenbach: The last Mergentheimer Jews and the stories of the Fechenbach families . Reprint, Bad Mergentheim 1997; Christoph Bittel: Between home and exile. The artist Hermann Fechenbach 1897-1986 . Booklet accompanying the special exhibition in the Teutonic Order Museum. Bad Mergentheim undated (1997).
  4. ↑ Maike Trentin-Meyer (Ed.): Mörikes Mergentheimer Years. To the Mörike cabinet in the Teutonic Order Museum . Bad Mergentheim 2008.
  5. ↑ Beate Plück-Daecke: The dollhouse collection in the Teutonic Order Museum Bad Mergentheim. Fink, Lindenberg 1997, ISBN 3-931820-17-3 ; Maike Trentin-Meyer (eds.), Renate Gröner, Sascha Kimmelmann, Elfriede Rein, Maike Trentin-Meyer (texts): Puppenstuben 1890–1970. Collection of the Teutonic Order Museum Bad Mergentheim. Bad Mergentheim 2012.
  6. ↑ Dates .
  7. ↑ Dates .

Coordinates: 49 ° 29 ′ 28.5 ″  N , 9 ° 46 ′ 35.9 ″  E