BEATLES MUSEUM – HALLE
World’s Oldest and Largest Public Beatles Exhibition
Why is there so much Beatles stuff in Germany? The English moptop boy band of the 60s, John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, first came to the public performing mania in the clubs of Hamburg before they became a world phenomenon, and the world’s largest collection of Beatles memorabilia in Halle (Saale), the city of another George, home town composer Georg Frederic Handel, is due to the collection mania of one early fan.
Rainer Moers began his Beatles collection on a whim. He started out just being a fan, keeping items of the Fab Four in 1964 like any kid around the world, but didn’t know he was a collector, until he traded a friend a Joni Mitchell album for a Beatles album. After that, he began to collect and search for every bit of Beatles publicity, products and history he could find. By 1975, the collection became a travelling exhibition, visiting 25 cities in Germany and other countries. In 1989 the collection had found a location in Cologne, a sister city of Liverpool (see Beatles in Liverpool), where it stayed for ten years, continuing to grow, joining with fellow enthusiast Matthias Bühring.
The collection needed a larger space and moved from its Cologne location. Several cities were prospects but the city of Halle made the best offer to get the museum as an attraction, championed by the former Foreign Minister, Dr. Hans-Dietrich Genscher. After a six months renovation the collection moved into its historic 300 year old building at Alter Markt 12. The Beatles Museum opened in hall in April 8, 2000. Filling every corner of seventeen rooms of three floors and attic space, the museum is the oldest continuous Beatles exhibition and the largest.
The building which houses the collection is a Baroque period house which began as the residence of a wealthy salt merchant and city judge Karl-Heinrich Reichhelm. In 1895, the house became the property of the city of Halle and established as home for the poor unmarried daughters of civil servants who worked in the court system. One of the children of one of those young mothers, Wolfgang Brühl became a victim of the Nazi era, marked by a memory stone in the sidewalk in front. The building survived the bombings of Halle in Second World War and was turned into a kindergarten school, eventually near ruin in the 1990s, when the renovation project restored it for a new tenant with an entirely different purpose.
The Collection
After entering through the courtyard rear door, the exhibition starts on the ground floor which also is a store of Beatles products and then upstairs to the three floors of rooms and hallway spaces divided into 17 theme sections of the Beatles journey, beginning with the pre-Beatles with some photographs of the band members as kids in Liverpool, and their first step at music, before forming the band, then broken into eras.
The second room represents 1957 to 1964 including items from the first encounter between John and Paul and their performances as the Quarrymen, later joined by George Harrison, then the foundation of the Beatles. Their first hits and major records from the early period are represented with original albums on display, press clippings, and signatures from the Hamburg era with some private photos from 1962.
The third room is called the "Blue Room" covering the years 1965 and 1966. Here are Bravo Magazines as the band made their second movie Help! And here is when the queen awarded the boy the MBE-Order. Rarities are two unpublished singles from the GDR (East Germany), a signature of film director Richard Lester, rare Picture-LPs from the live recordings in Japan. Here are editions of the Bravos magazine from 1965 and 1966, and souvenir items from the time and a Höfner bass guitar.
The continuing rooms and spaces, winding from corner to pillar, 15 more, go through eras and phases, covering Sgt. Peppers, the death of manager Brian Epstein, the Magical Mystery tour and Yellow Submarine, the foundation of Apple, then the breakup and solo years, John and Yoko, and later. There is a massive stamp collection of stamps from different countries, toys, publicity items, from posters and chewing gum to crystal plates, and a set of Beatles Marionettes. There is a reading room, replica period magazines you can read, and a documentary movie.
Visiting the Beatles Museum in Halle
The museum is open from 10 am to 6 pm Tuesday through Sunday and Public Holidays (Closed Monday). Admission price is €6 for adults €3 for children (under 150 cm tall) and includes all the exhibition rooms, and film screening. A wide range of Beatles music memorabilia items and fan stuff (current products) are available for sale and can be shipped. There is a small café in the museum where you can have a snack and tea while surrounded by objects d’Beatles. © Bargain Travel Europe
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Beatles Museum
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