zeiTTor - Museum der Stadt Neustadt in Holstein

The zeiTTor – Museum der Stadt Neustadt in Holstein stands in the old Kremper Stadttor and the buildings beside it. The museum opened in 1908 as the district’s first cultural collection. In 2007 the city took over its running and renamed it. A local association of 222 members now supports the work with money and hands-on help. The displays trace daily life and crafts in the region from the Stone Age to recent times. Visitors see tools from the Bronze Age and finds from the Slav period around the Neustädter Bucht. A 19th-century dentist’s surgery, a painter’s workshop and a period sitting room show how people lived. Other rooms recall the Schleswig-Holstein rising, local arts and crafts, and the fate of refugees after 1945. A small fossil room and oddities like a 1700 bridal plate and the last German street-singer’s barrel organ complete the tour. Beside the main building is the Cap-Arcona-Museum reached by stairs. Its first floor shows photographs of graves and memorials around the Lübeck Bight. Maps trace the death marches and sea transport that brought prisoners from Neuengamme and Stutthof to Neustadt. The ground floor holds wreckage from the ship Cap Arcona, striped prisoner clothes, a mess tin and shoe fragments. A new documentation centre is being built nearby to open in 2028 and will expand the story at the Ehrenfriedhof Cap Arcona and online.