Haus der Stadtgeschichte (Heilbronn)

The Haus der Stadtgeschichte stands in Heilbronn’s Deutschhof, a former monastery complex now shared with the municipal museums. The building houses the city archive and a permanent exhibition tracing Heilbronn’s past from its earliest days to today. It opened in its present form in 2012 after a major conversion funded by local entrepreneur Otto Rettenmaier. The exhibition ‘Heilbronn historisch! Menschen, Plätze, Geschichten’ fills two large halls totalling 485 square metres. One room covers the high and late Middle Ages in five chapters, ending with a glowing 3D model of the city around 1800. The second room follows the city’s growth since industrialisation, using large early-20th-century city views as central backdrops. Every station is supported by maps set into the floor, touch screens, audio-visual stations and dozens of original objects. Visitors walk past Carolingian carvings, medieval charters and a reconstructed iron hand linked to Götz von Berlichingen. A small cinema shows short films, while a converted photo booth lets people record their impressions of the exhibits. The route ends where the city’s changing boundaries are projected onto the floor, highlighting buildings that once stood there.