HESSE | Technik‐Museum Kassel

October 2024. During a week-long whistle-stop tour of Germany, we visit Dessau-Roßlau in Saxony-Anhalt, Weimar in Thuringia, Coburg in Upper Franconia (Bavaria) and Kassel in Hesse. Smaller cities, yes. But each with their own significance. Untouched by overtourism. We’re avoiding using the white trains of DB Fernverkehr, Deutsche Bahn‘s long-distance section and opt to use the red trains of DB Regio and other regional operators.

We love a good technology or transport museum so after Grimmwelt we took a tram and a bus to Technik-Museum Kassel.

Henschel & Sohn locomotive. Kassel was spelt Cassel until 1926.

The Kassel Technology Museum is located in the Henschel Plant II in Rothenditmold, at Ludwigsplatz 5 in the Bettenhausen distric. The complex is one of the few industrial factories in which large parts of the original substance have been preserved.

The factory represents a prototypical example of the architecture, use and fate of older factory sites – it is one of the oldest locomotive production facilities of this type in Germany that is still preserved as an ensemble. The museum collects and displays products, technologies and innovations from Kassel and northern Hesse in a historical context.

History of technology in Kassel and northern Hesse

The 300-year history of technology in northern Hesse began in 1706 with the demonstration of Denis Papin‘s steam pump. In the decades that followed, an industrial site developed where locomotives and trams, but also the smallest precision instruments, were developed and produced.

Today, research and work is carried out here on pioneering high-tech innovations.

Products, technologies and innovations

The exhibition testifies to the diversity and uniqueness of North Hesse‘s industrial culture as well as to exceptional entrepreneurial personalities and technical creativity: from historic fire trucks to solar and racing cars to flame eaters and machine tools.

Other collection areas include magnetic levitation technology, electrical energy technology, two-wheelers and communications and media technology.

Highlights of the exhibition

BEBRA model railway. One of the highlights is the BEBRA 58 model railway, where the junction station is built in miniature format based on original track plans. Model railway operating times: Saturdays from 12 noon to 4 PM
‘Dragon’ locomotive. Railway fans will be delighted to be able to study a 1:1 wooden model of the ‘Dragon’ locomotive up close within the historic walls. The ‘Dragon’ was the first locomotive built by Henschel in Kassel. It was completed in 1848 and, with around 250 hp, was one of the fastest locomotives of its time.
Lilienthal Glider. In 1969, Michael Platzer, an engineering student from Homberg, built a replica of Otto Lilienthal‘s ‘glider’ and flew it on the Wasserkuppe for a French film crew that was making a series about aviation pioneers. Today, this impressive aircraft hangs under the ceiling of the Technology Museum. Also on display is an extensive collection of technical objects, precision equipment, models and machines.

A visit

The Technik-Museum Kassel is basically a big shed. Well, it’s a production hall. But’s is a shed. While we are charmed by the efforts of the volunteers – and that’s a rare commodity nowadays – more can be done.

For instance, there’s a second former production hall, hidden behind a door. With items not completely ready for exhibition. But so many museums run by volunteers have the same issue of not having the people or the funds to (quickly) ready items for exhibition, yet they show these ‘unfinished items’ anyway. Technik-Museum Kassel.

This critique doesn’t take away the nice collection the museum has with quite some interesting objects and machines. Beware, everything or almost everything is in German only.

Trip By Trip

HESSE | Technik‐Museum Kassel