Station: [10] Siegfried Museum / Middle Gate

The Xanten Siegfried Museum stages the exhibition about the old yet still highly topical Song of the Nibelungs. The importance of the Song of the Nibelungs is underlined by its declaration as a world cultural heritage document by UNESCO. As a masterpiece of global literature, it is an ideal combination of fact and fiction. Love, hate, loyalty and betrayal are the basic themes of this epic poem, which make it so relevant even today. Siegfried of Xanten, the great dragon-slayer sets out to find adventure, fame, wealth and true love. Finally, he fails due to his own fault and dies at the hands of Hagen. The Siegfried Museum presents the characters from the Song of the Nibelungs and illustrates their greatness and limitations. It portrays the birth of this epic poem, how, at the time, it was received, narrated, transcribed and forgotten. We can learn what influence it had on the culture and politics of the society and what effects it left on European history. With the exposed walls of the former walkway of the medieval Bishop's Castle, the Siegfried museum points back to the origins of Xanten. To your left, you can see the building with the Middle Gate. Unlike the other gates, the Middle Gate was not a city gate, but an elevated bridge across the wide immunity moat of the Bishop’s Castle. Built in about 1392, the Middle Gate separated the northern part of the City of Cleves under the aegis of the Duke of Cleves from the southern part under the rule of the Electorate of Cologne, until Xanten was finally ceded to the Duke of Cleves in 1444. The walkway, first mentioned in 1415 and as yet not covered, served as an escape route and return path from of the Bishop’s Castle to the Meerturm and Meertor. Today, after it was rebuilt in 1978, it forms part of the Siegfried Museum.