Summary
Germany has always been a place which loves aviation.
It has a large aviation enthusiast community, and most of its airports provide viewing facilities for watching aircraft.
Germany is also home to some amazing aviation museums.
Here’s a guide to some of the best:
Dornier Museum
Photo (c) Clemens Vasters
Friedrichshafen
Dornier is a name which has a long-standing association with aviation and aircraft development. This museum, at Friedrichshafen, on the edge of Lake Constance, displays the history of the company and its founder Claude Dornier. It includes examples of many of the military, civil and light aircraft built.
Claude-Dornier-Platz 1
88046 Friedrichshafen
Technik Museum Sinsheim
Concorde F-BVFB on display at the Technik Museum, Sinsheim, Germany alongside a Tupolev Tu-144 (CCCP-77112). (Valder137, distributed under a Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0 Licence)
Also known as the Auto & Technik Museum Sinsheim, and affiliated with the sister museum at Speyer, this is an incredible place which has over 3,000 exhibits covering aviation, rail, space, military and other vehicles.
Among the aviation collection, many of which are perched on stilts in a take-off position, are both Concorde and Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic airliners, a Tu-134, Douglas DC-3, Vickers Viscount and Ilyushin Il-18.
You can climb up into many of these aircraft.
https://sinsheim.technik-museum.de/
Museumsplatz
D-74889 Sinsheim
Technik Museum Speyer
Photo (c) Technik Museen Sinsheim Speyer
Like its sister museum (above) this museum has thousands of exhibits covering all kinds of vehicles. Also like the other museum, it has some large aircraft perched high above which you can climb up to. They include a Boeing 747-200, Dassault Mercure, and Antonov An-12.
https://speyer.technik-museum.de/
Am Technik Museum 1
D-67346 Speyer
Flugausstellung Peter Junior
Photo (c) Klaus Nahr
Usually known as Hermeskeil Museum, this is a fantastic collection of aircraft not far from the Luxembourg border. It covers all kinds of aircraft, including historic and military types from across Europe, as well as some large airliners like a de Havilland Comet 4, Vickers VC10, Ilyushin Il-18, Tupolev Tu-134 and Vickers Viscount.
https://www.flugausstellung.de/
Habersberg 1
54411 Hermeskeil
Deutsches Museum
Asiir at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons
Also known as the German Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology, this museum in central Munich has thousands of exhibits of all kinds. Among these are an aerospace collection, which includes a number of aircraft
https://www.deutsches-museum.de/
Museumsinsel 1
80538 München
Deutsches Museum Flugwerft Schleissheim
Photo (c) Steve Knight
To complement the Deutsches Museum (see above), this collection at Oberschleißheim just outside Munich houses many more of the museum’s aviation collection.
These include mostly military, light aircraft and helicopters, with many historic and iconic types.
https://www.deutsches-museum.de/flugwerft-schleissheim
Effnerstraße 18
85764 Oberschleißheim
Museum für Luftfahrt und Technik
Major18, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Located at Wernigerode in Eastern Germany (between Hannover and Leipzig), this collection has around 45 aircraft and hundreds of other related exhibits on display. Mostly light aircraft and small jets are displayed, many of which have historic significance.
https://www.luftfahrtmuseum-wernigerode.de/
Gießerweg 1
38855 Wernigerode
Militärhistorisches Museum Flugplatz Berlin-Gatow
Photo (c) Alf Igel
Located on the site of the former Gatow military airfield near Berlin, this is a large museum which focuses on the post-War history of the German Air Force, and also the history of the airfield (under both Luftwaffe and RAF control).
There are some 155 aircraft on display and tens of thousands of other items and objects.
Flugplatz Berlin-Gatow
Postfach 22 00 53
14061 Berlin
Aeronauticum
Photo (c) 270862
A museum dedicated to German maritime aviation history, located at Nordholz in Lower Saxony. It displays aircraft that have been used by the German Navy, and is situated next to the Nordholz Navy Air Base.
Peter-Strasser-Platz 3
27639 Wurster Nordseeküste
There are of course many other smaller collections and museums across Germany which display aviation objects. Which have you visited? Which would you recommend? Leave a comment below!
Title image: Klaus Nahr
2 comments
Several Museums / Collections worth visiting:
1. Hangar10 Collection, Heringsdorf Airport, Island of Usedom
2. Luftfahrtmuseum Hannover, Hannover-Laatzen
3. Quax Oldtimerclub, Paderborn / Bienenfarm
4. Luftraum Süd Collection
Love to visit the Hermeskiel, all those magnificent British types, however ALL of them worth a visit.
Great to see them being lovingly restored.