Welcome to the Knoblauchhaus Museum in the Nikolai Quarter in Berlin. In this playlist you will learn more about the history of this house and its inhabitants. It is an excerpt from the new audio guide in the museum.

Knoblauchhaus Museum - English audio guide

Whether in the private salons of Rahel Varnhagen or Henriette Herz, whether in numerous clubs or lodges or in the surroundings of the great theaters and the Singakadamie - everywhere in the city a culture of cultivated encounters developed that was typical for Berlin.
The leading figures from business, art and culture, politics and science met and exchanged ideas in an open atmosphere.

Berlin society - Knoblauchhaus Museum audio guide

From the staircase you have a view into the kitchen. Its present furnishings correspond to the condition around 1830. The walls and ceiling are painted in a reddish-brown color typical of the time.

The kitchen had no daylight, but was always the warmest room in the house. In the Biedermeier period, cooking was still done on an open fire, so there were always embers in the stove. Above it was a large exhaust hood. In the past, there was certainly also a small oven.

Kitchen - Knoblauchhaus Museum audio guide

When you enter the Knoblauch family's living room, you are standing on historical ground: on December 26, 1828, the house owner Carl Knoblauch met here with five notable personalities of his time. They were the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the sculptors Christian Daniel Rauch and Christian Friedrich Tieck, the private scholar Wilhelm von Humboldt and Peter Beuth, the Prussian state's industrialization commissioner. They all met in this room for a board meeting of the "Verein der Kunstfreunde im preußischen Staat," or Art Association for short. This association was founded in Berlin in 1825 for the broad promotion of art and culture and already had over 1,500 members a few years later. The graphic editions published by the association were extremely popular, as were the regular raffles of works of art. Carl Knoblauch once won a large-format painting by the painter Heinrich Dähling. This painting, entitled "The Minstrel," hung on the wall above the sofa for decades. However, it has been lost since 1945.

Living room/salon - Knoblauchhaus Museum audio guide

The reception room or - as it used to be called in French - the entrée is the middle one of three adjoining magnificent rooms. The room tuned the guests of the house to enter the living room, to which it goes on the left. Here the owner of the house, Carl Knoblauch, was waiting for his guests. Besides family members, friends, business partners and club colleagues had access to this living area. Larger social gatherings were held here on a regular basis.

Entrée/Raffael room - Knoblauchhaus Museum audio guide

The Knoblauch House was built from 1759 to 1761 by the master needle maker Johann Christian Knoblauch and then remained in the family for 170 years. Initially, the first floor housed the workshop where needles, wires, sieves and much more were manufactured. Already the son of the builder, Karl Friedrich Knoblauch changed to textile trade and converted the rooms into an office for silk ribbons. The living quarters of the family and servants were located on the floors above. From the outside, the building has been preserved in its original state with a few modifications. The late Baroque facade dates from the time of the building's construction. In 1806 the classicist vine frieze was added, and in 1835 the main portal.

In 1929, the building was sold to the city of Berlin and later rented out. Unlike the neighboring Nikolai Church, it remained undamaged during the Second World War. In the run-up to the 750th anniversary of the city in 1987, the Berlin magistrate recalled the value of the Nikolai quarter as a historical center and founding site of the city of Berlin. As a result, the Nikolai Church was restored and the Knoblauchhaus was established as an exemplary museum of bourgeois residential culture between 1815 and 1848. Thus, the oldest square in the city, where both historic buildings are located, has regained much of its original beauty.

Welcome - Knoblauchhaus Museum audio guide

As with most of the rooms in the house, the furnishings in the library are no longer original, but have been recreated in an idealised form of the Biedermeier period’s style. But many historical furnishings are also present, having been made available to the museum by the Knoblauch family. This includes the bookcases and their contents that you see in this room.

Education was considered very important by the middle-classes during the Biedermeier period and so reading was generally very popular! Behind the glass doors of the display cases are works by renowned poets and thinkers such as Schiller, Herder and Lessing or the founder of classical archaeology: Johann Winckelmann. But also ancient writers such as Homer, Herodotus and Aristophanes, and works on Christian matters are represented. The historical novels of Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott were very popular!

Library - Knoblauchhaus Museum audio guide

Ausschnitt aus dem Rondo der Sonate op. 5, Nr. 1 für Pianoforte und Violoncello
Komposition: Bernhard Romberg (1767-1841) 
Barockcello, Lyraklavier
Konzertmitschnitt vom 23. Januar 2022

Rondo der Sonate op. 5, Nr. 1 für Pianoforte und Violoncello - Bernhard Romberg - Ausschnitt

Listen to how contemporary witnesses experienced the end of the World War II in Berlin. Learn more about that time, the unconditional surrender on 8 May, and the every day life in the last days of the war.
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Thank you to the Lebendiges Museum Online (a project of Deutsches Historisches Museum) for letting us use those excerpts from their archive. You can read the whole diaries here: www.dhm.de/lemo
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The end of world war II in Berlin: A collage of historic diary entires

Höre, wie Zeitzeugen das Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs in Berlin erlebten. Erfahre mehr über diese Zeit, die bedingungslose Kapitulation am 8. Mai und den Alltag in Berlin während der letzten Kriegstage.
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Vielen Dank an das Lebendiges Museum Online (ein Projekt des Deutschen Historischen Museums), dass wir diese Auszüge aus dem Museums-Archiv verwenden durften. Ihr könnt die kompletten Tagebücher hier lesen: www.dhm.de/lemo
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Das Ende des zweiten Weltkriegs in Berlin: Eine Kollage aus historischen Tagebucheinträgen

Das Stadtmuseum Berlin ist eines der größten kulturhistorischen Museen Deutschlands. In unseren Häusern präsentieren wir Berliner Kultur und Geschichte von der Ur- und Frühgeschichte bis in die Gegenwart.

Library - Knoblauchhaus Museum audio guide

Stadtmuseum Berlin

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