Freudenberg Technical Museum

Freudenberg, eleven kilometres west of Siegen, is known for its half-timbered houses in the old town. The town has a long industrial history, and in 1991, 25 people got together and founded the ‘Friends of Historic Vehicles Freudenberg’. To provide space for their growing collection, they acquired the half-timbered hall of a former sawmill and rebuilt it together with a separate engine house and a replica of a Siegen fire engine house on the site of a glue factory that was demolished in the early 1970s. In 2002, the technical museum was opened. Since then, historical methods of production and their products have been brought up to date, keeping the history of industrialisation in the Siegerland region alive.

A steam engine from 1904 from the former glue factory has been preserved at its original location and is now one of the museum's outstanding exhibits. On demonstration days, it drives the transmission system of several reconstructed historic workshops with their machines and tools: one of the largest collections of its kind in Germany. The exhibition also includes looms, a range of agricultural machinery and, of course, cars, motorcycles, military vehicles and tractors as well as themed exhibits such as petrol pumps. A blacksmith creates works of art from iron and visitors can take a ride on a miniature railway in the garden.