MehlWelten Museum
Museum in Wittenburg all about flour and grain with the world's largest flour sack collection, more than 3,600 sacks from more than 140 countries; free admission.
About the museum
The impetus was a chance find: in 1998, Volkmar Wywiol, managing director of the Ahrensburg company Mühlenchemie, came across a washed-up flour sack on a beach in Dubai. The idea of collecting flour sacks as cultural heritage led to a collection that grew mainly through submissions from the company's customers and employees. In June 2008, the museum opened in Wittenburg, initially under the name "flour art museum". The operator is Mühlenchemie, a company of the Stern-Wywiol Gruppe, which also operates a production site in the town.
The museum uses the former district court on the Wittenburg Amtsberg, a Neoclassical building from 1848. It stands on the site of a Slavic fortress and a later castle, of which only the gate tower survived. After the Second World War, the Soviet military command was temporarily housed here, and from 1950 until 2007 the building served as a school.
The exhibition leads through themed rooms on wheat cultivation worldwide, myths surrounding grain and flour, the imagery of flour sacks, and the cultural history of grain. The centerpiece is the Sackothek with more than 3,600 sacks from more than 140 countries, whose motifs are also analyzed from a cultural studies perspective at the museum. Since 2017 there has also been a replica of the glacier mummy Ötzi here, combined with a film installation about einkorn, the oldest cultivated species of wheat.
Highlights
- World's largest flour sack collection in the Sackothek
- The only replica of the Ötzi figure from the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology
- Myth room on grain and flour myths
- White room about flours and their purity
- Former district court from 1848 on the Amtsberg
- Free admission
Permanent exhibitions
- Sackothek – The world's largest flour sack collection with more than 3,600 sacks from more than 140 countries, arranged by country and searchable through a database at the media table.
- Ötzis Einkorn – Replica of the glacier mummy from the Ötztal Alps with a room-filling film installation on clothing, equipment, and grain processing in the late Stone Age.
- Am Anfang war das Korn – Room on the question of since when grain has shaped human nutrition and how it influenced advanced civilizations and their myths.
- Founded
- 2008
- Operated by
- Mühlenchemie GmbH & Co. KG (Stern-Wywiol Gruppe)
Admission & discounts
Admission is free.
| Visit or tour outside opening hours | €5Per person, at least €100 per tour |
|---|
Admission is free during regular opening hours.
Accessibility
The museum hasn’t published any information on this – please ask the museum directly.
Kids & families
The museum hasn’t published any information on this – please ask the museum directly.
Getting there & parking
By car via the A24 Hamburg–Berlin, exit Wittenburg/Hagenow (no. 10), then follow the signs to Wittenburg; from the exit it is about 10 minutes to the museum on the Amtsberg.
Get directionsAmenities & dining
The museum hasn’t published any information on this – please ask the museum directly.
Events & venue rental
The museum hasn’t published any information on this – please ask the museum directly.
Plan your visit
| Guided tours | yes |
|---|---|
| Good to know | Special tours and visits outside opening hours by arrangement by phone or email. |
