Heimatmuseum Bergen-Enkheim

Since 1959 the Heimatmuseum Bergen-Enkheim has been housed in the historic town hall of Bergen-Enkheim and is dedicated to the local cultural history of the former town of Bergen-Enkheim, which received city rights in 1968 and was incorporated into Frankfurt am Main in 1977. The museum is operated by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Heimatmuseum Frankfurt am Main – Bergen-Enkheim e. V.; the association has around 150 members and supporters.

The entrance to the museum is on the west side of the town hall, formerly referred to as the Spilhus or Spielhaus; it is located on the partially slated rear façade with a stair tower and is reached via several steps. The vaulted cellar displays agricultural implements, including equipment for producing apple wine. The ground floor represents the former open market and court hall and contains a model of the Spilhus with historical comparative photographs as well as a large diorama with 2,260 painted tin soldiers depicting the Battle of Bergen on Good Friday, 13 April 1759. Other exhibits include a large sandstone coat-of-arms stone from 1671 and the tomb of a Berger Amtmann.

The first floor houses several exhibition rooms: historic coins, porcelain, earthenware and weapons feature alongside a diorama of the capture of the Schelmenburg by a fighting force from thirteen towns under Frankfurt command, depicting the apprehension of the brothers Gerlach and Sibold Schelm von Bergen, who were reviled as robber knights. Historical sewing tables are displayed in the bay window; on the staircase and the corridor leading to the council chamber are finds from prehistory as well as geological and natural history collections.

The museum’s holdings range from a hand axe from the Paleolithic (circa 120,000 years), recovered in 1961 in today’s Vilbeler Landstraße, through finds from the Linear Pottery Neolithic, exhibits of the Urnfield period (1200–800 BC), bronze ornaments of the Hallstatt and La Tène periods (800–500 BC and 500 BC–AD 50), Roman pottery fragments and brick fragments of Legions XIV and XXII, up to silver coins from the time of the Schmalkaldic War and weapons from the Middle Ages through the Thirty Years’ War to the Napoleonic era.

The Arbeitsgemeinschaft publishes the journal spilhus (Mitteilungen für die Freunde des Heimatmuseums …) several times a year in DIN A4 format; it is sent to members, available in shops and at the museum, and some issues are accessible online as PDFs. The museum celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2009; in the same year the Battle of Bergen marked its 250th anniversary.

From early 2012 the museum was closed to visitors from the first floor upwards due to renovation work on the roof structure and the ceiling between storeys; the affected exhibits were relocated. Since the end of 2015 the building has not been accessible to the public because of construction and securing work. Since 7 November 2019 a partial exhibition has been shown in the storage rooms at Marktstraße 38 to bridge the period until the anticipated reopening in 2026/27.

The Old Berger Town Hall, or the Heimatmuseum Bergen-Enkheim, is served by RMV bus lines 42 and 43; the Heimatmuseum Bergen-Enkheim stop is in the immediate vicinity, and parking is available at the nearby Stadthalle.