Welcome @museum.de

F: Hello and welcome to Siegburg Stadtmuseum – the city museum! We look forward to showing you our collection, which takes in archaeology, art and cultural history…

M: ... and also to telling you a few exciting stories about the history of the city of Siegburg.

F: This building, where our museum found a home in 1990, is a very special place – it‘s the birthplace of the famous composer Engelbert Humperdinck, who was born within its walls 1854. He composed some wonderful operas – including the fairy-tale opera "Hansel and Gretel". The house was built in 1828 as a Latin school. Engelbert Humperdinck's father worked here as a teacher at secondary level. We’ve included separate stops about the school and the great composer as part of your tour.

M: Our museum is receptive to contemporary trends. On the first floor, we show exhibitions of work by current artists...

F: ... and the Forum, which you’re looking at now, regularly serves as a venue for concerts and other events.

M: Our museum’s most faithful visitor and its mascot is Lottchen, a Siegburg original. That’s the figure there, on the steps of the Forum.

F: Lottchen’s birthname was Charlotte Bertram, her nickname was Lottchen. Lottchen was born in 1912 with male and female sexual organs. In those days, “hermaphrodite” was the term used to describe people we now call “intersexual”. Lottchen’s parents raised their child as a girl. But as an adult, Lottchen opted to live as a man. Lottchen constantly struggled with prejudice, in part because of a congenital short stature. Lottchen died in 1971.

M: Cologne artist Thomas Aust created this life-size figure in 1990, and it’s been closely observing life here in the museum ever since.

F: We’ll have more stories to tell you in due course. Please head to your left to start your tour.