Municipal museum in a 1940 high-rise bunker in Oberhausen on the air war over the Ruhr region and Europe – free admission, open on Wednesdays and Sundays.
September 27, 2026 – December 13, 2026
The Frankfurt photographer Peter Seidel shows photographs of otherwise hidden underground places. The exhibition ties in with the largely underground Bunkermuseum and the mining history of the Ruhr area.
The high-rise bunker on Alte Heid street in Oberhausen's Knappenviertel district was built in 1940 to protect the civilian population. With its heavy industry, the Ruhr region was a prime target of Allied bombing raids in the Second World War, and the need for shelters was correspondingly great. The reinforced-concrete structure, with a polygonal floor plan roughly 50 metres long and 20 metres wide, is spread across a basement, ground floor and upper floor and provided room for up to 2,000 people.
The City of Oberhausen took over the bunker in 1999, and the Bunker Museum opened there in 2001. Today the building is also part of the Alte Heid community centre. Organisationally, the museum belongs together with the Oberhausen Memorial Hall to the municipal information centre Gedenkhalle/Bunkermuseum.
The revised permanent exhibition “Heimatfront” (Home Front) links the war of conquest and annihilation unleashed by the National Socialists with the Allied air war over the Ruhr. Examples from Oberhausen and England convey what the bombing meant for people, and draw a line to present-day wars. Alongside the permanent exhibition, the museum shows temporary exhibitions, offers workshops for school classes and is a point of contact for Oberhausen's Stolperstein project.
Admission is free.
Admission, guided tours and school workshops are free of charge.
The museum hasn’t published any information on this.
Only partly suitable for kidsRecommended for ages 16+
According to the museum, tours of the museum and exhibition are suitable for people aged about 16 and over; school programmes are aimed at grade 9 and above.
The museum hasn’t published any information on this.
The museum hasn’t published any information on this.
The museum hasn’t published any information on this.
| Guided tours | yes |
|---|---|
| School programs | yes |
| Good to know | Public guided tours on selected evenings at 6 pm; because of the narrow rooms, group size is limited and registration (tel. 0208 6070531-0 or info-gedenkhalle@oberhausen.de) is required. Workshop “Air War in Oberhausen” for grades 9 to 13 (2–4 hours). |
All 7 museums in Oberhausen All museums in North Rhine-Westphalia
