Siegburg-Prussia @museum.de

F: Now for another leap forward in time to the early 19th century. It was a period of upheaval. For Siegburg, it heralded the end of rule by the Duke of Berg and brought an invasion by French troops.

M: The first display case represents the period from the French invasion to the point where the French administration was replaced. The small diorama shows Russian troops driving the French occupation force out of the city in November 1813, and paving the way for the new rulers of the Rhine Province – the Prussians.

F: But our display also shows the many achievements the French introduced, which continue to have an effect even now – for instance, the Napoleonic Code or the introduction of new administrative structures.

You can see an open copy of the Napoleonic Code in the display case. It is the first code committed to the ideals of the Enlightenment and still forms the basis of the German Civil Code today.

M: In 1815 Siegburg became part of the Prussian Rhine Province. Resistance to the new system of government found expression in the bourgeois democratic revolution of 1848/49, which extended to the Siegburg Bonn area.