Cloppenburg Museum Village
Encyclopedia
The Cloppenburg Museum Village and Lower Saxon Open-Air Museum in the Lower Saxon county town of Cloppenburg
is the oldest museum village in Germany. The museum is a research and educational establishment in the field of cultural and countryside history.
The Lower Saxon Open-Air Museum is a non-profit organisation. Although the museum does not set out to compete for visitors, in 2009 the Cloppenburg Museum Village had more visitors than any other museum in Lower Saxony (250,000). In 2004 the visitors included about 60,000 children and young people, who took in what the museum had to offer as part of their school curricula.
fire, including the Quatmannshof farm. By 1962 this farm had been reconstructed true to the original in detail. The second museum director after Heinrich Ottenjann was his son, Helmut Ottenjann (1961–1996). Since 1996 Uwe Meiners has been the director of the open-air museum.
facilities are always activity- and product-oriented.
The museum village is also a research establishment. Research work concentrates on folklore
, regional history and house research. A team of three scientists, constantly supported by volunteers and project partners, investigate e.g. historic sources, advise on the construction of new houses, plan exhibitions etc. This work is documented not just in scientific journals and volumes; the museum village also publishes its oown books and papers. The scientific staff are supported by craftsmen, who maintain the museum village and who demonstrate traditional crafts for the visitors.
Since 2009 the museum village has been donated €50,000 annually for the maintenance of its buildings by the Carola Wüstefeld Foundation.
Lower Saxony region from the 16th century to the present. Over 50 historic buildings with their associated rural gardens and surrounding agricultural fields serve to illustrate the relationship of man to his environment over the course of time.
In the early days a form of reconstruction was chosen that showed the houses in their original state. Important construction variants of the Low German house and East Frisia
n Gulfhaus are presented in this way. Since the 1970s the houses have been reassembled, conserving the traces of their history and with aspects of the biographies of their former occupants.
In addition to buildings that underpinned farming and crafts and the residential homes of country folk the museum terrain also has a timber framed church from Klein-Escherde (built in 1698) and a village school
from Renslage (built in 1751).
Outside the actual museum village terrain, north of Höltinghauser Straße, a large moor plough displayed.
More information about the individual exhibits is available in an interactive location plan.
In 2011 the construction of a new entrance hall with integrated cultural-historical centre is planned to start. Funding is to be provided by the state of Lower Saxony, the district and the town of Cloppenburg. In the same year the home of a Stellmacherei from 1564 will be completed. This building will then be the oldest one on the museum village site.
As well as farmhouses, servants' houses (Heuerhäuser) and farm workers' houses there are numerous examples of rural tradesmen's houses: a turner's
, a whitesmith
's, a farrier
's, a blacksmith
's, a coppersmith
's, a leather shoemaker's, a clog maker's
, a joiner
's, a carpenter
's workshop, a brewery
, a cooper
's, a blue printing works, a saddlery, a pottery
, a goldsmith
's and a silversmith
's as well as technical cultural artefacts like grinding mills
and engines.
The Cloppenburg Museum Village aims to display as complete a range as possible of the different types of old country crafts and their associated tools and equipment being used.
. Those following this tourist route will be able to see the following:
) and Beverbruch (parish of Garrel
).
The results of the extensive work of the museum are presented to the public by means of selected examples in regularly changing special exhibitions in Arkenstede Castle (Burg Arkenstede) and the Münchhausen Barn (Münchhausenscheune).
has taken place between Ascension and the Sunday before Pentecost
on the terrain of the Cloppenburg Museum Village.
" mythology. This assumption has been inadvertently fostered by the Centre for Educational Media on the Internet (Zentrale für Unterrichtsmedien in the Internet (zum)) because they listed the history teachers of the Museum Village under "Cloppenburg Museum Village (NS)", the NS standing for Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), not Nationalsozialismus (Nazism).
In fact the foundation of the Cloppenburg Museum Village needs to be seen more in the context of the growth of the local history movement in Germany: This had arisen as early as 1880 as a reaction to the urbanization of Germany and from the desire of many towns to remember their agricultural roots. From this movement, in the state of Oldenburg
, the Ammerland farmhouse in Bad Zwischenahn
in 1910 and the Rauchkate in Neuenburg in 1912 emerged as places where memories could be brought to life. In 1922 a local history
museum was founded in Cloppenburg itself.
From this movement Heinrich Ottenjann developed the concept of the Cloppenburg Museum Village, which came to fruition in 1934. The national socialists supported the idea of local history and exploited and ideologised the site which had in fact been based on folk and farming history, but never in the sense of becoming a Nazi cult site like the Stedingsehre project in Bookholzberg which was also supported by Gauleiter
Carl Röver.
Today staff at the Cloppenburg Museum Village react rather irritatedly at the insinuation that there is a similarity between local history and Nazi ideology: the museum village not only holds regular events intended to throw light on Nazi 'demons', but its employees are also well enough informed that, for example, when asked, they can comment on the theory that the horses heads on Lower Saxon farmhouses (Lower Saxon houses) are relics of the sacrifice
of horses, a myth widely disseminated by the Nazis, but which does not stand up to the critical investigation by historians.
Cloppenburg
Cloppenburg is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, capital of Cloppenburg District. It lies 38 km south-south-west of Oldenburg in the Weser-Ems region between Bremen and the Dutch border. Cloppenburg is not far from the A1, the major motorway connecting the Ruhr area to Bremen and Hamburg...
is the oldest museum village in Germany. The museum is a research and educational establishment in the field of cultural and countryside history.
The Lower Saxon Open-Air Museum is a non-profit organisation. Although the museum does not set out to compete for visitors, in 2009 the Cloppenburg Museum Village had more visitors than any other museum in Lower Saxony (250,000). In 2004 the visitors included about 60,000 children and young people, who took in what the museum had to offer as part of their school curricula.
History
The Museum Village was laid out in 1934 by the Cloppenburg senior schoolmaster, Heinrich Ottenjann. It was ceremonially opened on Ascension Day in 1936. On 13 April 1945 six houses in the museum village were destroyed by artilleryArtillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
fire, including the Quatmannshof farm. By 1962 this farm had been reconstructed true to the original in detail. The second museum director after Heinrich Ottenjann was his son, Helmut Ottenjann (1961–1996). Since 1996 Uwe Meiners has been the director of the open-air museum.
Purpose
The Lower Saxon Open-Air Museum acts today as a research and educational establishment for cultural and agricultural history. The museum educationMuseum education
Museum education is an important part of the role of museums.- Introduction :A museum's collection can be used to support education in a variety of ways...
facilities are always activity- and product-oriented.
The museum village is also a research establishment. Research work concentrates on folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
, regional history and house research. A team of three scientists, constantly supported by volunteers and project partners, investigate e.g. historic sources, advise on the construction of new houses, plan exhibitions etc. This work is documented not just in scientific journals and volumes; the museum village also publishes its oown books and papers. The scientific staff are supported by craftsmen, who maintain the museum village and who demonstrate traditional crafts for the visitors.
Since 2009 the museum village has been donated €50,000 annually for the maintenance of its buildings by the Carola Wüstefeld Foundation.
Facilities
On an area of about 20 hectares (49.4 acre), the Lower Saxon Open-Air Museum portrays the history of the rural life in theLower Saxony region from the 16th century to the present. Over 50 historic buildings with their associated rural gardens and surrounding agricultural fields serve to illustrate the relationship of man to his environment over the course of time.
In the early days a form of reconstruction was chosen that showed the houses in their original state. Important construction variants of the Low German house and East Frisia
East Frisia
East Frisia or Eastern Friesland is a coastal region in the northwest of the German federal state of Lower Saxony....
n Gulfhaus are presented in this way. Since the 1970s the houses have been reassembled, conserving the traces of their history and with aspects of the biographies of their former occupants.
In addition to buildings that underpinned farming and crafts and the residential homes of country folk the museum terrain also has a timber framed church from Klein-Escherde (built in 1698) and a village school
Village School
Village School is a name used by several schools including:* Village School * Village School * Village School * Village School...
from Renslage (built in 1751).
Outside the actual museum village terrain, north of Höltinghauser Straße, a large moor plough displayed.
More information about the individual exhibits is available in an interactive location plan.
In 2011 the construction of a new entrance hall with integrated cultural-historical centre is planned to start. Funding is to be provided by the state of Lower Saxony, the district and the town of Cloppenburg. In the same year the home of a Stellmacherei from 1564 will be completed. This building will then be the oldest one on the museum village site.
Agriculture and crafts – living and working buildings
Of the many buildings that were used for farming, the Quatmannshof (from Elsten, built in 1805) and the Wehlburg (from Wehdel, built in 1750) are especially worth mentioning.As well as farmhouses, servants' houses (Heuerhäuser) and farm workers' houses there are numerous examples of rural tradesmen's houses: a turner's
Turning
Turning is the process whereby a single point cutting tool is parallel to the surface. It can be done manually, in a traditional form of lathe, which frequently requires continuous supervision by the operator, or by using a computer controlled and automated lathe which does not. This type of...
, a whitesmith
Whitesmith
A whitesmith is a person who works with "white" or light-coloured metals such as tin and pewter. While blacksmiths work mostly with hot metal, whitesmiths do the majority of their work on cold metal .The term is also applied to metalworkers who do only finishing work – such as filing or polishing –...
's, a farrier
Farrier
A farrier is a specialist in equine hoof care, including the trimming and balancing of horses' hooves and the placing of shoes on their hooves...
's, a blacksmith
Blacksmith
A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...
's, a coppersmith
Coppersmith
A coppersmith, also known as a redsmith, is a person who makes artifacts from copper. The term redsmith comes from the colour of copper....
's, a leather shoemaker's, a clog maker's
Clog
Clog may refer to:* clog , a shoe with a rigid, often wooden, sole* A blockage in plumbing* A British brand of rock-climbing equipment owned by Wild Country * Clogging, a traditional type of percussive folk dance...
, a joiner
Joiner
A joiner differs from a carpenter in that joiners cut and fit joints in wood that do not use nails. Joiners usually work in a workshop since the formation of various joints generally requires non-portable machinery. A carpenter normally works on site...
's, a carpenter
Carpentry
A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....
's workshop, a brewery
Brewery
A brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made at home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company....
, a cooper
Cooper (profession)
Traditionally, a cooper is someone who makes wooden staved vessels of a conical form, of greater length than breadth, bound together with hoops and possessing flat ends or heads...
's, a blue printing works, a saddlery, a pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
, a goldsmith
Goldsmith
A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Since ancient times the techniques of a goldsmith have evolved very little in order to produce items of jewelry of quality standards. In modern times actual goldsmiths are rare...
's and a silversmith
Silversmith
A silversmith is a craftsperson who makes objects from silver or gold. The terms 'silversmith' and 'goldsmith' are not synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product varies greatly as does the scale of objects created.Silversmithing is the...
's as well as technical cultural artefacts like grinding mills
Mill (grinding)
A grinding mill is a unit operation designed to break a solid material into smaller pieces. There are many different types of grinding mills and many types of materials processed in them. Historically mills were powered by hand , working animal , wind or water...
and engines.
The Cloppenburg Museum Village aims to display as complete a range as possible of the different types of old country crafts and their associated tools and equipment being used.
Mills
Since 2008 the Museum Village has been a stop on the Lower Saxon Mill RoadLower Saxon Mill Road
The Lower Saxon Mill Road is a holiday route that guides visitors to watermills and windmills in the north German state of Lower Saxony and thus links the interests of historic monument conservation with those of the tourist industry.-Emblem:...
. Those following this tourist route will be able to see the following:
- a post millPost millThe post mill is the earliest type of European windmill. The defining feature is that the whole body of the mill that houses the machinery is mounted on a single vertical post, around which it can be turned to bring the sails into the wind. The earliest post mills in England are thought to have...
(Bockwindmühle or Ständermühle) from Essern (Nienburg district), probably built around 1638 - a smock millSmock millThe smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind...
(Kappenwindmühle, Galerieholländer, Achtkantwindmühle or Holländer) from Bokel (Landkreis Cloppenburg|Cloppenburg district) from the year 1764 - a Kokerwindmühle windmill from EdewechtEdewechtEdewecht is a municipality in the Ammerland district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approx. 15 km west of Oldenburg. It is the home of the company Meica which is known throughout Germany as a manufacturer of sausages.-Twin towns:...
(Landkreis Ammerland) dating to 1879, originally conceived as a water scoop mill (Wasserschöpfmühle) - a horse millHorse millA horse mill is a mill that uses a horse as the power source. Any milling process can be powered in this way, but the most frequent use of animal power in horse mills was for grinding grain and pumping water. Other animals used for powering mills include dogs, donkeys and oxen. Engines powered by...
from Mimmelage (Osnabrück district); a wooden mill or horse gin, for milling corn, built around 1850 to 1890. Grain was milled with the aid of horses. The horse mill found in the threshing and grain barn of the Wehlburg farm from the year 1868 is the last of its kind in Lower Saxony that has been preserved.
Collections and exhibitions
Amongst the museum's collections is the famous Oldenburg meteorite ('Bissel' fragment, 4.84 kg) which fell from the sky in 1930 onto the villages of Bissel (parish of GroßenknetenGroßenkneten
Großenkneten is a municipality in the district of Oldenburg, in Lower Saxony, Germany.-Geography:Großenkneten is one of the largest municipalities in Germany, in terms of its area, and is situated between the rivers Hunte and Lethe, in the landscape called Wildeshauser Geest...
) and Beverbruch (parish of Garrel
Garrel
Garrel is a municipality in the district of Cloppenburg, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approx. 15 km north of Cloppenburg, and 25 km southwest of Oldenburg....
).
The results of the extensive work of the museum are presented to the public by means of selected examples in regularly changing special exhibitions in Arkenstede Castle (Burg Arkenstede) and the Münchhausen Barn (Münchhausenscheune).
Outing
Since 2002 an annual garden festivalGarden festival
A garden / flora festival or exposition is a festival and exposition held to celebrate the arts of gardening, garden design, landscaping and landscape architecture. There are local garden festivals, regional garden festivals, National Garden Festivals and International Garden Festivals. The idea...
has taken place between Ascension and the Sunday before Pentecost
Pentecost
Pentecost is a prominent feast in the calendar of Ancient Israel celebrating the giving of the Law on Sinai, and also later in the Christian liturgical year commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Christ after the Resurrection of Jesus...
on the terrain of the Cloppenburg Museum Village.
The Genius loci
The museum's founding year of 1934 has given rise to the question of whether the Cloppenburg Museum Village was an expression of Nazi "blood and soilBlood and soil
Blood and Soil refers to an ideology that focuses on ethnicity based on two factors, descent and homeland/Heimat...
" mythology. This assumption has been inadvertently fostered by the Centre for Educational Media on the Internet (Zentrale für Unterrichtsmedien in the Internet (zum)) because they listed the history teachers of the Museum Village under "Cloppenburg Museum Village (NS)", the NS standing for Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), not Nationalsozialismus (Nazism).
Oldenburg
Oldenburg is an independent city in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the western part of the state between the cities of Bremen and Groningen, Netherlands, at the Hunte river. It has a population of 160,279 which makes it the fourth biggest city in Lower Saxony after Hanover, Braunschweig...
, the Ammerland farmhouse in Bad Zwischenahn
Bad Zwischenahn
Bad Zwischenahn is a village and a municipality in the low-lying Ammerland district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the lake Zwischenahner Meer, approx...
in 1910 and the Rauchkate in Neuenburg in 1912 emerged as places where memories could be brought to life. In 1922 a local history
Local history
Local history is the study of history in a geographically local context and it often concentrates on the local community. It incorporates cultural and social aspects of history...
museum was founded in Cloppenburg itself.
From this movement Heinrich Ottenjann developed the concept of the Cloppenburg Museum Village, which came to fruition in 1934. The national socialists supported the idea of local history and exploited and ideologised the site which had in fact been based on folk and farming history, but never in the sense of becoming a Nazi cult site like the Stedingsehre project in Bookholzberg which was also supported by Gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
Carl Röver.
Today staff at the Cloppenburg Museum Village react rather irritatedly at the insinuation that there is a similarity between local history and Nazi ideology: the museum village not only holds regular events intended to throw light on Nazi 'demons', but its employees are also well enough informed that, for example, when asked, they can comment on the theory that the horses heads on Lower Saxon farmhouses (Lower Saxon houses) are relics of the sacrifice
Sacrifice
Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals or people to God or the gods as an act of propitiation or worship.While sacrifice often implies ritual killing, the term offering can be used for bloodless sacrifices of cereal food or artifacts...
of horses, a myth widely disseminated by the Nazis, but which does not stand up to the critical investigation by historians.
Sources
- Hermann Kaiser, Helmut Ottenjann: Museumsführer Museumsdorf Cloppenburg - Niedersächsisches Freilichtmuseum, Stiftung Museumsdorf Cloppenburg (1995)- ISBN 3-92367-514-3
- Hermann Kaiser: Ein Haus und eine Familie in schweren Zeiten: Der Wiederaufbau der Hofanlage Wübbe M. Meyer aus Firrel, Ostfriesland im Museumsdorf Cloppenburg , Stiftung Museumsdorf Cloppenburg (2003) - ISBN 3-92367-592-5