Welcome @museum.de

M: Welcome to the House of City History in Offenbach am Main!

F: Your tour will take you on a journey through Offenbach’s history – from its beginnings as a fishing and farming hamlet with a handful of people in 977 AD to the modern city with its population of around 140,000 people from more than 150 nations.

M: But before we dive deep into Offenbach's history, we’d like to tell you something about the House of City History itself:

F: The Museum of Local History was founded in 1917. It originally exhibited its collection at Isenburg Palace, before moving into its own building in 1938, just a year before the outbreak of the Second World War. That building was destroyed in a bombing raid in 1943. Most of the collection was reduced to ashes. The exhibits that were salvaged, including the art and print collections, were put into storage. In 1971, the City Museum celebrated its reopening in Dreieichpark – literally, Three Oaks Park. In 2003, the museum joined forces with the City Archive and moved into the Bernard Building – which opened to the public a year later as the House of City History.

M: The Bernard Building started life as a factory – a snuff mill built by the firm of Gebrüder Bernard in 1896. On your left is the historic shop floor, where the tobacco was filled into tins and containers. Today, we use that space to host temporary exhibitions and events. The hall on the right, our exhibition space, originally had a very high ceiling. That was where the tobacco stamping mills once stood. A false ceiling was added to create a second exhibition space.

F: Please head on into the exhibition to begin your journey back in time. And enjoy your trip!