Museum des Handwerks

The Handwerksmuseum Bederkesa stands in Bad Bederkesa, a town in Lower Saxony. It occupies an old gasworks building and traces the craft trades of the Elbe-Weser region from their beginnings to the 20th century. The project began with Peter Hennig, master shoemaker and senior guild officer, and his wife Martha, who set up a small shoe-making museum in 1986. Their idea grew into a larger museum with support from Wilfried Habenicht, then district director. After years of planning, the community provided the gasworks site. Handwerk guilds raised 170 000 euros in donations and volunteer work to convert the building. In 1996 fourteen guilds and the town founded the museum as an association, followed in 1997 by a supporting friends’ association. Visitors find a complete shoemaker’s workshop, a 1950s barber’s salon and a working printing shop. The collection lists more than twenty trades from bakers and blacksmiths to upholsterers and wheelwrights. A special display shows irons from many eras. The founders Peter and Martha Hennig were awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 2010.