Museum Burg Stickhausen

Description

On the outskirts of the East Frisian village of Stickhausen in the municipality of Detern, Museum Burg Stickhausen presents its exhibitions in the castle's historic round tower.

The Burgverein Stickhausen maintains and operates the building, which was cleared of clutter as part of an extensive exterior restoration completed in August 2020 and was reopened in 2021. The site itself dates back to the 15th century: initial structures were built around 1435 by the Hanseatic city of Hamburg to protect westbound trade routes; around 1498 Count Edzard I had the round tower that still stands today erected. Further extensions and alterations followed in subsequent centuries. After its takeover by Prussia in 1744 the fortress lost its military importance, and by order of Frederick the Great it was largely slighted. What remained were the large round tower of 1498 and remnants of the ramparts. Until 1885 the tower served as a prison and as the residence of the Amtmann; thereafter the site passed into private ownership. After the Second World War there was a small museum in the tower, which from the 1970s was only open intermittently. In 2019 the Samtgemeinde Jümme acquired the site; in the same year the Burgverein Stickhausen was founded and established the present museum.

The permanent exhibition is devoted to the development of Stickhausen, the history of the castle and the lives of its former inhabitants. The fate of the Gerdes family is presented as an example: in the first half of the 19th century they lived in the castle tower in very cramped and impoverished conditions. The Burgverein is currently (2023) commissioning a model of the fortress at its greatest extent; students of Applied Geodesy are producing site and elevation plans as well as a three-dimensional digital terrain model of the complex.