Sudeten German homeland centres

Homeland centres (Heimatstuben) were established in many places in West Germany and Austria and are dedicated to specific towns or regions in the former Sudeten territories. This was not possible in the GDR. Heimatstuben serve various functions: they act as social meeting places, offices, libraries, archives, or museum exhibition spaces. In some cases, they are also integrated into municipal museums as part of more recent urban history.

For those responsible for and interested in Heimatstuben, the Sudeten German Museum organizes the Forum Heimatsammlung every two years as a central training event to promote exchange among participants. In addition, the museum provides all Heimatstuben with a free database for cataloguing their collections, offers training in inventory management, and advises on conservation issues and potential exhibition projects. Please feel free to contact us.

If a Heimatstube is dissolved, there is the option to transfer the collection to the Sudeten German Museum. There, the memorabilia are integrated into the museum’s collection and preserved for the future.

Further information can be found in the Informationen finden Sie im directory of heritage collections published by the Federal Institute for Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe (BKGE) (as of 2022)