The museum
The city museum is housed in one of the finest buildings in Worms – the former collegiate church “Andreasstift”, a late Romanesque group of buildings dating from the early 13th century.
With the help of important archeological finds from Worms and the surrounding area, we take you on a journey of discovery through 7000 years of settlement history. The permanent exhibition presents a large number of archeological finds made in Worms that are from the Bronze Age and the New Stone Age (Neolithic Age). The section devoted to the Roman period is equally impressive, as are the finds from the time of the Franks, who settled in Worms around 500 CE. The Luther Room is a reminder of the occasion when this famous reformer was summoned to appear before the Diet of Worms in 1521. You will also be given an informative insight into the leather industry, which played an important role in Worms from the middle of the 19th century. On the ground floor there is an impressive model of the city as it was before it was sacked in 1689. Films about Worms in the period between the 1920s and the 1950s give a vivid impression of more recent developments in the city’s history.
The history of the museum
A museum of the City of Worms since 1930
St. Andrew’s Church (the Andreaskirche) and the former collegiate buildings are part of the rich Romanesque architectural heritage in the city and date from the beginning of the 13th century. St. Andrew’s was a collegiate church from the year 1000 until 1802, and it directly adjoins the city wall.
At the beginning of the 19th century St. Andrew’s was secularized and the buildings were used, among other things, by the city of Worms as a storehouse for fruit and by the city’s fire service. Renovation work on this former collegiate church with its late Romanesque cloisters was undertaken between 1928 and 1930.
Since then it has housed the collections of exhibits that the local history association (the “Altertumsverein”) donated to the city of Worms at that time. The museum’s opening ceremony, attended by the President of the State of Hesse, was on July 1st 1930, the day on which French forces withdrew from the left bank of the Rhine. This day marked the “liberation“ from French occupation since the end of the First World War.
Return of the collection after 1945
The building was damaged in the war, but the collection was reinstalled after 1945, and the museum now combines archeology and the history of the city.
Contact
The city museum in the Andreasstift
Weckerlingplatz 7
67547 Worms
Telephone number: +49 (0) 62 41) 8 53 – 41 05
email: msmwrmsd
