Regional Museum Bitterfeld

In 1892, Bitterfeld church rector Emil Obst founded the “Municipal Collection for the History of Bitterfeld and its surroundings”. In 1901, the museum moved to its current location, a former girls’ school built in 1839. Over the more than 120 years of its existence, the museum’s holdings have grown to about 50,000 objects. The permanent exhibition highlights the town’s history from the Middle Ages through the Reformation and the 30 Years War to the heyday of Bitterfeld’s retail trade around 1920. A model of the town, historical photographs and objects from everyday life illustrate local history. Another area details the history of gas ballooning. The basement of the facility houses an exhibition on the amber mined from 1975 to 1993 in the Goitzsche open pit mine, processed into gemstones at the VEB Ostseeschmuck in Ribnitz-Darmgarten and distributed far beyond the borders of the former GDR. The Bitterfeld museum hosts special exhibitions on local history and other topics and also offers guided tours of the permanent and special exhibitions, curriculum-oriented events for school classes, kindergarten-friendly museum programs and special events such as lectures or children’s birthday parties by prior arrangement.