Weissenfels Museum

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Logo of the shoe museum Weißenfels

The Weißenfels Museum is a regional and urban history museum in Weißenfels in the Burgenland district in Saxony-Anhalt . It was founded in 1910 and has been at Neu-Augustusburg Castle since 1964 . The three largest collections in the museum are shoes , vivat ribbons and iron art castings .

History of the museum

Castle church with Förner organ

The museum goes back to an association for natural and ancient studies. He was born on July 4, 1874 at the suggestion of the Berlin physician and anthropologist Prof. Dr. Rudolf Virchow , who was in Weißenfels in May 1874 on the occasion of an excavation. The association consisted mainly of senior employees, civil servants and manufacturers. The Weißenfelser Kreisblatt regularly announced the association's meetings in its advertising section. The association saw its task in the recovery of prehistoric and early historical finds in Weißenfels and the surrounding area; he expanded his collection through donations. In the early years this concentrated on the areas of geology , fossil science , mineralogy and the creation of a herbarium . Most of the donations came from gravel, sand and clay pit owners who were members of the association themselves.

In 1890, the Hamburg-born lawyer Alfred Junge settled in Weißenfels, who had already taken a keen interest in museums and local history research during his studies in Leipzig . Junge quickly began to get involved in public life and in the scientific and cultural endeavors of the city of Weißenfels. In 1902 he became a board member of the Association for Natural and Ancient Studies. With his participation, local history was declared to be his future main task. The association set up its own library , organized lectures and excursions , expanded its collections to include documents and objects relating to the history of the city ​​and art, and in 1903 was able to present a large exhibition on local history.

Because the growing collections could soon no longer be properly housed and exhibited or stored without a system, the city authorities spoke out in favor of setting up a museum. They took over the collections and exhibited a large part in the premises of the former St. Claren monastery; The museum was inaugurated in 1910. In nine thematically designed rooms, prehistory , ducal times , guilds, important personalities and the development of the shoe industry were discussed. Maintaining and increasing the collection remained in the hands of the association, whose motto was "Only through history can we fully understand what is today". Alfred Junge remained director of the museum until his death in 1936, after which his wife Hedwig took over this task. In the turmoil of the Second World War , the Association for Natural and Ancient Studies dissolved.

After Hedwig Young's death in 1949 and the provisional management by Hans Single, the trained shoemaker Kurt Beuthan was appointed the new museum director in 1950. One of his first tasks was to move the museum from the former monastery to the former preparatory facility at Langendorfer Straße 33. In 1964 a new move followed to Schloss Neu-Augustusburg. Beuthan was followed by Ernst Geigenmüller as director, and in 1965 Ingo Bach, who remained until 1990 and was temporarily replaced by Angela Sengewald.

In 1969, under Bach's direction, the " GDR Shoe Museum " was set up as a permanent exhibition. Despite the catastrophic state of construction in the castle and the temporary closure of public operations, numerous special exhibitions and visitor programs for all age groups were initiated and implemented. The local newspaper Die Freiheit reported regularly from the 1960s on these events and also published the museum's annual visitor numbers. For example, there were special shows on the fine arts that also exhibited international artists, but also anniversary exhibitions called for by the SED regime, for example on Lenin . Over the years, Die Freiheit documented the close cooperation between the museum and the VEB Kombinat “Banner of Peace”, which presented manufacturing machines as exhibits and involved members of the Free German Youth in the research and restoration work of these machines. The collection of shoes from the current GDR production has been completed, which is unique in its unity. Ingo Bach also acquired a number of paintings and graphics from Max Lingner's early work. The 1985 Bach - Handel - Schütz year led to the renovation of the Heinrich Schütz House and the permanent establishment of a music memorial there with holdings from the city museum.

Under the directors Eleonore Sent and Dr. Astrid Fick, the royal crypt of the castle was restored from the 1990s, a permanent exhibition on the city's history was set up and preliminary work was carried out on the exhibition of baroque history, which was opened in 2007 by the new museum director Martin Schmager as part of the “Baroque princely residences on Saale , Unstrut and Elster ” program is. Aiko Wulff has been running the museum since 2017.

Collections

particularities

The collection of shoes from the current GDR production from the 1950s is a unique selling point of the Weißenfels museum. Furthermore, there are numerous objects for the footwear of the baroque nobility in the inventory; the dukes of Saxony-Weißenfels had their own court shoemaker.

After the shoes, the two most important collections of the museum are the iron art castings and the Vivat ribbons. The latter were dedication and gift ribbons, which in the time of Frederick II of Prussia often bore the title “Vivat” and which were primarily used in the 19th century on special occasions. Weißenfels owns the world's largest collection of Vivat tapes, a gift from Privy Councilor Gustav Winkel from 1919. In the area of ​​iron art casting, there are mainly works from the Berlin iron foundry from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

In 1991 the internationally known photographer Horst P. Horst, born in Weißenfels, gave his hometown 20 of his photographs, which were presented in a special exhibition a year later.

The Weißenfelser Museum is in contact with the museums of the twin cities Kornwestheim , Komárno and Kimry , as well as with the Austrian Adalbert Stifter Institute , with the Technical University of Berlin and the University of Potsdam .

Permanent exhibitions

  • Weissenfels Shoe Museum, with two departments on ethnological footwear, an international shoe collection, and the shoe industry, which sheds light on the history of the regional shoe industry, especially in GDR times, and also exhibits footwear from prominent personalities;
  • Weißenfels - A royal Saxon residence, which illuminates the history of the Secondary Principality of Saxony-Weißenfels between 1657 and 1746;
  • City history from 1757 to 1871

In addition, the early baroque castle church of St. Trinity, which has been used by the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church since the end of the Second World War, is looked after as a museum space. The church was restored true to the original in 1984/85, as was the princely crypt underneath from 1991 to 1995. In addition to the permanent exhibitions, the museum has other rooms for changing special exhibitions.

Visitor programs and events

In addition to special educational offers, the museum regularly invites you to scientific lectures, readings and summer and winter concerts by the Weißenfelser Hofkapelle . Every year in May, the Weißenfels Museum Night and the International Museum Day take place. On the last weekend in August, the museum takes part in the Weißenfels Castle Festival .

opening hours

  • April to September: Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
  • October to March: Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
  • The royal crypt can be visited every hour on the last Saturday of the month from 11 a.m. as part of a special tour.

Support association

The Friends of Museum Weißenfels eV, founded in 1991, supports the museum at Schloss Neu-Augustusburg and the nearby city archive of Weißenfels. Members of the association include former employees of the museum, residents interested in history and a younger generation of cultural workers who have already actively supported the museum work as student interns or volunteers.

The aim of the association is to arouse interest in maintaining regional traditions, local lore and history of Weißenfels and the surrounding area. The regional history is to be researched and conveyed through lectures, publications and exhibitions in the museum. The friends and sponsors of the museum and the city archive support these projects financially and personally in order to increase their attractiveness. Small purchases are made from association funds and restorations are co-financed. The members also help the museum organize events.

literature

  • Ingo Bach (1994): Uses and conditions in the Neu-Augustusburg Castle in the period from 1945 until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Memory notes. In: Freundeskreis Schloß Neu-Augustusburg eV (Ed.): Festschrift. 300 years of Neu-Augustusburg Castle, 1660–1694. Residence of the dukes of Saxony-Weissenfels. Weissenfels.
  • Richard Neumann (1936): Justizrat Junge, the creator and first director of the City Museum in Weißenfels. Obituary. In: The home. Sheets for researching the local history and cultivating the homeland idea , supplement to the Weißenfelser Tageblatt , September 1936.
  • Mike Sachse (1995): The Weißenfelser Natur- und Altertumsverein. In: Weißenfelser Heimatbote , 4th year, issue 4, December 1995. Weißenfels.
  • Martin Schmager (2011): 100 Years Museum Weissenfels. In: Museum Weißenfels (Ed.): 100 years Museum Weißenfels . Weissenfels.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Sachse: The Weißenfelser Nature and Antiquity Association. In: Weißenfelser Heimatbote , 4th year, issue 4, December 1995, p. 111 and p. 112.
  2. ^ Neumann: Justizrat Junge, the creator and first director of the municipal museum in Weißenfels. Obituary. In: The home. Sheets for researching the local history and cultivating the homeland idea , supplement to the Weißenfelser Tageblatt , September 1936.
  3. ↑ a b c d Schmager: 100 Years Museum Weissenfels. In: Museum Weißenfels (Ed.): 100 Years Museum Weißenfels 2011, p. 11 and p. 12, p. 13, p. 14, p. 15 and p. 16.
  4. ^ Hoyer: Vivat tapes from the Gustav Gotthilf Winkels collection . In: Museum Weißenfels (ed.): 100 years Museum Weißenfels 2011, p. 70.