Richard Brandt Home Museum

The museum, which opened in 1963 in the center of Bissendorf, was donated to the municipality of Wedemark by its founder, the writer and local historian Richard Brandt (1899–1984). It is housed in two adjacent historic buildings. The Kavaliershaus, dating from 1629, houses the prehistoric collection, an old kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, and an exhibition area featuring Karl Montag’s violin-making workshop. The Amtskrug, built in 1792, houses the local history collection. A special feature of the museum is its collection of memorabilia related to well-known artists and poets with ties to the town, such as the writer Hinrich Braasch, the painter and engraver Georg Heinrich Busse, the “Heide” poet Hermann Löns, and, in particular, the poet Gottfried August Bürger (1747–1794), who married Molly Augusta Leonhart here in 1784.

The museum has been enriched by a considerable collection of rocks from the estate of a passionate paleontologist couple. Anyone interested in trilobites and ceratites will find a wealth of illustrative material on the upper floor of the Kavaliershaus.

The next room is reserved for the painter and violin maker Karl Montag, born in 1917, and his remarkable instruments. Montag, who only became a self-taught violin maker at the age of 40, created violins with a richness of sound that rivaled the violins of the century by Stradivarius and the Cremona school.