Zucker-Museum

Contact Data

Address: Amrumer Straße 32
ZIP, City: 13353 Berlin
Country: Germany

Fax: +49-30-31 42 75 86
Phone: +49-30-31 42 75 74

Museumsportal Berlin: http://www.sdtb.de/Zucker-Museum.6.0.html

Description

Berlin was the scene of the most important events in the history of beet sugar: it was here, in 1747, that Andreas Sigismund Marggraf, the best known chemist of his time in the German-speaking world, discovered sugar in the mangold-wurzel. His student and successor, Franz Carl Achard, continued his work and produced (in what today is the Berlin-Kaulsdorf) the first beet sugar in 1798. With the financial support of Friedrich Wilhelm III the world´s first beet sugar factory was set up in Cunern/Silesia in 1801 and in March 1802, the first beet sugar was produced. In 1806, Napoleon I issued a famous edict in the imperial army camp in Berlin, which became known as the Continental blockade, which favoured the beginnings of sugar beet farming because it cut Europe off from colonial sugar. The first sugar institute in the world was founded in Berlin in 1867 under Carl Scheibler; it was at the same time the oldest institute of the food industry and survived for 111 years.

The Sugar Museum was opened on the 8th of May 1904. Its establishment was initiated by Edmund Oskar von Lippmann, the doyen of the history of sciences and sugar.

As the original foundation of the German sugar industry, the Sugar Museum was taken over by the Land Berlin after 1945 and handed over to the Technical University Berlin in 1978. Since the 1st of July 1988 the Sugar Museum has been a state museum (Landesmuseum) and falls within the competencies of the Department of Culture. As of the 1st of November 1995 it has been part of the German Museum of Technology Berlin.

Throughout its eleven departments the Museum gives the visitor an insight into all fields related to sugar: technology, science and agriculture as well as economic history, folklore and art.

In addition to sugar beet, sugar cane (as well as other sources of sugar like honey, palm and maple), sweeteners and the most important by-products of the sugar industry are addressed.