Jacob Litsch Museum

Local history museum in the listed half-timbered house Stöcken in Haan, the birthplace of local researcher Jakob Litsch; visits by appointment.

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About the museum

The Stöcken house in Haan was first mentioned in a document in 1365 and is one of the oldest houses in the town. Here the local and dialect poet Jakob Litsch was born in 1887; until his death in 1980, he lived in the house together with his sister Anni. Litsch was a passionate collector and antiquarian. He brought many finds back from his travels and first added prehistoric and early historic pieces to the Haan local history museum; later, he kept a large part of them in his own house.

His wish to turn the entire house into a local history museum could only be partly realized. Today a substantial part of the collection is displayed in the half-timbered house, which the city of Haan describes as its only local history museum. The city could no longer afford to run the museum financially; in 1992, the Backhaus family acquired the building. Since 2001, Anne Backhaus has conducted the tours.

The collection includes Stone Age hand axes and tools, a Bronze Age skull with ring jewelry, historical rifles and pistols, Old Bergisch furniture, and oil lamps and pewter tableware from the 19th century. The highlight is the so-called Darius head (Dariuskopf), a sculpture from the baptismal font of the old Haan church, consecrated in 933 and demolished in the mid-19th century. The tours also include the house itself and the orchard.