The Otto-Lilienthal-Museum in Anklam

Anklam

Anklam is a town in the Western Pomerania region of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is situated on the banks of the Peene river, just 8 km from its mouth in the Kleines Haff, the western part of the Stettin Lagoon. Anklam has a population of 14,603 and was the capital of the former...

 (Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

) is a museum about the "glider king" Otto Lilienthal

Otto Lilienthal

Otto Lilienthal was a German pioneer of human aviation who became known as the Glider King. He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful gliding flights. He followed an experimental approach established earlier by Sir George Cayley...

, the flight pioneer, as well as a pioneer in technical, social and cultural projects.

History

The town of Anklam is Lilienthal’s birth place. Various objects belonging to the life and work of Otto Lilienthal, among them a reconstruction of a glider from the year 1925 have been part of a local history museum, founded in 1927. The Otto-Lilienthal-Museum was opened in 1991 as a biographical technical museum. Today the museum houses the largest collection of Lilienthal aircraft in reconstruction.

Collections

The museum archives contain everything that is known about the first successful glider pilot, essays, documents, including a photo archive, replica and models of all known gliders and aircraft of Lilienthal. Moreover, the brothers Otto and Gustav Lilienthal

Gustav Lilienthal

Gustav Lilienthal was a German social reformer, a pioneer in building and construction technology , inventor of different Construction sets and involved in the pioneering work of his brother, Otto Lilienthal in aviation.-External links:* on the website of Otto-Lilienthal-Museum...

 were very prolific inventors of steam engines, toys, as well as initiators of numerous social and cultural projects.

The museum acquired a large collection of hang gliders and shows models of aircraft, from the time before the first successful flights, represent the early history of aviation

Aviation history

The history of aviation has extended over more than two thousand years from the earliest attempts in kites and gliders to powered heavier-than-air, supersonic and hypersonic flight.The first form of man-made flying objects were kites...

 and the prehistory of the aircraft.

Awards

In 1996 the museum has been awarded the title "FAI Recognized Museum" from the International Organisation of Aeronautics FAI

Fédération Aéronautique Internationale

The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale is the world governing body for air sports and aeronautics and astronautics world records. Its head office is in Lausanne, Switzerland. This includes man-carrying aerospace vehicles from balloons to spacecraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles...

, and in 1999 the museum was the first one in the former East-Germany area which was awarded the "European Museum of the Year Award - Special Commendation" by the European Museum Forum. The state minister for culture and media of the Fed. Rep. of Germany awarded the museum the title "German National Memorial" since 2001.

External links

• http://www.lilienthal-museum.de