New Lützen Museum attracts thousands of visitors

Since the opening of the new building of the Lützen 1632 Museum at the end of October, over 5,000 people have visited the exhibition. "We are very satisfied with the number of visitors, especially as we started outside the usual season for Lützen with the opening at the end of October," said museum director Manuela Dietz. "Before the closure, in 2022, 4,661 visitors came. This figure has already been exceeded in the first six weeks of the new opening. "The Battle of Lützen on November 6, 1632 was one of the main battles of the Thirty Years' War. The armies of the Protestant Swedish King Gustav II Adolf and the Catholic imperial army under Albrecht von Wallenstein faced each other here.

One of the only mass graves found from the battle

The museum comprises around 450 square meters of exhibition space with exhibits, graphics and pictures. As a memorial to the horrors of war, the impressive installation of the historic mass grave from the time of the Thirty Years' War in Lützen takes center stage. The six by seven meter grave stands vertically in the exhibition space.

Archaeologists discovered the skeletons of 47 soldiers who fell near Lützen in 1632 in August 2011, based on historical sources from the 17th century. The youngest was 14, the oldest 50 years old. So far, it is the only mass grave found from the battle.

Lützen is a memorial, but it is also about how wars can be avoided in the future. "There is hardly any other region like Central Germany where it is so easy to understand how war became established as an astonishingly recent invention in human history," said state archaeologist Harald Meller.

Museum offers educational programs

Concrete programs are currently being developed for visitors to the Lützen 1632 Museum. Various formats such as readings, panel discussions and workshops are planned. In addition to traditional school excursions with guided tours, project weeks on topics such as the culture of remembrance and working with archaeological finds are also planned. "The museum has a collection that we want to make more accessible in future. This should appeal to interested adults and researchers as well as schoolchildren," said Dietz.