History of German Pharmacy Museum

Founding and establishing

The German Museum of Pharmacy Foundation came into being in 1937, opening the museum itself in 1938 in Munich. The exhibits presented consisted exclusively of donations of the profession, such as the extensive private collections of the Rath family, Frankfurt (former owners of the Vial & Uhlmann Co.) and of Walter Heinrici, Pharmacist, Halle, which was completed by numerous single donations.

Only a few years later – the museum had been closed down due to World War II – the museum building and those pieces of the collections that had not been transferred into safe store-rooms were hit by fire bombs, and totally destroyed.

After the war was over the German Museum of Pharmacy found temporary domicile for the collections which survived the destructions of the war, in the prince-episcopal residence of Bamberg. Luckily, most of all stocks could’ve been saved.

In 1957, the German Museum of Pharmacy was officially reopened in the spacious premises of the Ottheinrich Renaissance palace building at Heidelberg Castle where it offers fascinating views to the most complete and comprehensive collection of objects worldwide, illustrating the history of pharmacy on highest quality level to hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

The declared aim of this museum foundation might be described with the keywords: enlargement, preservation and maintenance of our collections in order to depict the history of pharmacy based on scientific premises in a lively arranged museum.

Until today these statutes are shaping the foundation’s honorary work, not least guaranteed by the constant and committed support of the trade of dispensing chemists and their umbrella organization – the Federal Association of German Pharmacist Associations (ABDA).