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Museum of Hamburg History (Hamburgmuseum)
The Hamburgmuseum, or hm, is also the Museum
fur Hamburgische Geschichte, which means in English, Museum for
Hamburg History; and located in the city of Hamburg, Germany,
started in 1922, though the parent organization was begun in 1839.
The name was changed to the hamburgmuseum in 2006, and is close to
the Planten un Blomen park that sits in the middle of the city. The
main structure was designed by Fritz Schumacher, and built from 1914
until 1922. In 1842, a large fire destroyed the museum's courtyard,
but was finally renovated in 1995, with a glass dome being put over
the inner courtyard in 1989. Originally, the Hamburg Observatory was
at the site from 1825 until 1912, when it was moved to Bergedorf,
with the site being part of the old city wall that was located here
between 1616 and 1625. The museum itself was located at the
Johanneum School. The museum was originally owned by the state, run
by Otto Lauffe, but in 1999, it became city managed and owned. Much
of the antiquities were saved by the Society of Hamburg History that
started in 1839, with the Petri portal from St. Petri Church,
constructed in 1604, being built into the new museum's courtyard.
With almost two dozen exhibits, the museum is very inclusive of the
city's history, and the country around it. One of the most exciting
artifacts that have been saved and is included in the museum's
itinerary is the oldest color film of the Hamburg port, taken in
1938, and put onto a modern DVD. In 1944, the museum was bombed, and
partially demolished, but the entire collection was saved, and the
glass enclosure that covered the courtyard was also damaged, but was
also repaired. The basement holds the restoration areas for
metals, woods and textiles. The ground floor contains the history of
costumes from the 1750s to the 1830s, and from the 1830s to the
1920s; the patrons of the museum; music and art in Hamburg; theater
and science in Hamburg; and rotating exhibitions. The next floor
contains the gems from the city's history that includes the
Hamburg's stock exchange coat of arms; the old stock exchange and
scales from 1650; merchant ship companies and battles against
pirates; as well as medieval Hamburg areas that include from Saxon
village to the consolidated missions and trading institute; Hamburg
and the church; Hamburg as a Hanse City and the Kogge, the medieval
goods carrier. It also has the coin cabinet, the reformation in
Hamburg with church art and documents that relate to confessional
reorganization; Hamburg in the early modern times that include trade
and industry; model of the industrial mills on the Alster; the
living conditions and building art; baroque merchants hallway; urban
features and constitution of the 17th century with model of urban
features in 1644; church construction and parish orders; and
constitutional debates. The Hamburg city of emigration; Hamburg from
1945 until today; post war reconstruction; new technology;
environmental problems and aircraft construction; as well as the
Steamer Werner bridge. The second floor contains doll houses and
Hamburg silver; with a plethora of items and exhibits from the Jews
that lived in Hamburg that include the immigration from the 16th
century up to today; Jewish life festivities; the Klopstock room;
baroque living rooms that include frieze art from the old testament;
Deichstraben room and catharinenstraben room. Another part houses
the model railway unit that includes regular demonstrations of the
rail traffic between Hamburg and the Main Station on a scale of
1:32; photographs, objects and models about the development of the
main-line service and local urban traffic.
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Hamburg Zoo
The Zoological Garden in
Hamburg, Germany, started as a zoo in 1863 and operated as such
until 1930; and the aquarium that opened in 1864 was one of the
first in the world. In 1850, Hamburg was the third biggest city in
the German Confederation, with Berlin and Vienna being bigger, and
wild animal trading had started in 1820, with a roadhouse menagerie
that was running in the 1840s. Ernst von Merck, a local rich
merchant, who was also a member of the German parliament, in 1849,
gathered a group of people to create a zoo. In 1860, at the first
meeting of the Zoological Society of Hamburg, von Merck was voted in
as president; and became the fifth zoo in the country, after the
Berlin Zoological Garden in 1844, the Frankfurt Zoological Garden in
1858, the Cologne Zoological Garden in 1860, and the Dresden
Zoological Gardens in 1861. It began as a shareholder company, and
in 1861 bought a 32 acre plot outside the city walls, close to a
city cemetery. In 1862, the zoo created more shares to finance the
creation of an aquarium and the exuberance was so great that the
shares sold out in 24 hours. The zoo opened with a bang in
1863, and over 54,000 people came to visit in the first week,
although there were only 300,000 that lived in the city. Annual
attendance was around 300,000 each year for the first ten years, and
the first director, Alfred Edmund Brehm kept adding to the zoo's
population, so that soon it was even bigger than that at Berlin; for
much of its duration. They had some wonderful results in the
breeding area, becoming the first zoo in the world to breed the
Brazilian tapir, in 1868, the Malayan tapir in 1879, and the
Schomburgk's deer in 1870, which sadly has now become extinct. The
aquarium was one of the finest ever built, and in 1865, a national
newspaper stated that it rivaled that of London. It acquired a
Sumatran rhinoceros in 1868, the first one that had ever been seen
in the nations of Europe. In 1863, the zoo's first competitor opened
with a number of exotic animals, and although it was a small zoo,
stayed in business a long time because of the marvelous exotics that
it did have. In 1907, Hagenbeck, the owner of the exotic zoo,
revolutionized the way zoos were built, when he took away the bars
and cages, and used moats to separate animals and people. The
Hamburg zoological garden looked quite shabby and old compared to
this new Tierpark Hagenbeck, and it was really noticed when the
Tierpark had a million people coming to its zoo, which was twice as
many as the zoological park had in its best years. The first World
War almost put both zoos out of business, but in 1915, the
zoological garden opened the biggest primate house in the world,
with 22 outdoor and 69 indoor cages. Most of the primates starved to
death during the war, though. When the country's economy almost fell
to the bottom, after the war, the Hagenbeck could rebuild its zoo,
but the zoological garden couldn't. At the end of the year in 1920,
the society was liquidated and within a month, the zoological garden
shut down. Then a new organization was formed called the Hamburg
Zoological Garden Corporation, which took over the zoological
garden, creating a huge collection and buying 882 acres of land to
house them all. Then, in 1929, the market crashed, and the zoo was
again in trouble. They tried to save it by making half of it a bird
sanctuary, and the other half an amusement park, but it also failed
and in 1931, the zoo was closed. The city took over the lease and
made the garden into a park.
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