Aeronauticum

(

if you can read German) - darkometer rating: 3 -

An aviation museum in northern Germany with a double focus: a) on the era of the Zeppelins (airships), and b) naval aviation, plus a few extra aspects. It has some remarkable smaller dark artefacts in the indoor exhibition halls as well as a collection of aircraft on open-air display, including a historically unique VFW 614.

>More background info

>What there is to see

>Location

>Access and costs

>Time required

>Combinations with other dark destinations

>Combinations with non-dark destinations

>Photos

More background info: The museum with its latinized name derived from the term ‘aeronautics’ is also known as the “Deutsches Luftschiff- und Marinefliegermuseum Nordholz” (German aeronautics and naval aviation museum’). It goes back to private initiatives and collections that came together as a registered association (“eingetragener Verein”) in 1987. In 1990, the naval aviation branch of the West German military gave the association part of their base at Nordholz to use as an exhibition space. Its first incarnation opened in 1991.

The first museum building soon proved insufficient for displaying the collections in the possession of the association. In 1994 it “inherited” an exhibition hall from the naval museum in Bremerhaven (see below). This hall had become redundant due to expansion projects. So it was dismantled, brought to Nordholz and re-erected there. The new museum, now named officially “Aeronauticum”, was opened in 1997. An additional annexe was added in 2006 and a museum café in 2007. The museum has kept on expanding and new sections and open-air exhibits have joined the portfolio, most recently at the end of 2025.

The location is of historical significance. It was here that in 1912 a large base for Zeppelins and other airships (aka ‘dirigibles’) was established. The complex consisted of two large halls for accommodating single airships, two double airship halls as well as another double airship hall mounted on a circular rail track so that it could be turned 360 degrees in order to avoid crosswinds when moving airships in or out of the hall.

With space for up to ten airships, the base at Nordholz became one of the most important such bases in WW1, when Zeppelins flew sorties over England and introduced long-range aerial bombing to the warfare of the day.

After WW1 the airship halls were dismantled, but from the mid-1920s onwards the German air force, “Luftwaffe”, used the base for heavier-than-air military planes. In WWII, the base was used for naval aviation monitoring and defending the southern North Sea and the German Bight.

After WWII the airbase was first used by the British occupying forces, later by the Americans, before in 1964 it was given to the West German Navy (“Marine”). It’s home to the “Marinefliegerkommando” (‘naval aviation command’) and is the base for two navy squadrons, “Marinefliegergeschwader 3” (mainly for naval reconnaissance and named after “Graf Zeppelin” from 1967) and “Marinefliegergeschwader 5” (for search-and-rescue helicopters).

What there is to see: Quite a lot – much more than I had previously expected.

Before you enter the museum building take note of the life-size bronze statue of Count Zeppelin (Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin), whom one of the local naval squadrons is named after.

Note that all labels and texts in this museum are in German only, so without a decent reading knowledge of the language, you won’t get much of the details (unless you arrange for a guided tour in English – see below)

In the main hall of the indoor exhibition the focus is on airships, due to the historical connection of this place with that form of aeronautics (see above). There are lovingly-made scale models of various airships, not just Zeppelins but also one from the competitor Schütte-Lanz, plus scale models of the airship halls of the original airship base at Nordholz. There are also original parts from airships, including a wreck piece from the airship Hindenburg, which so spectacularly crashed and burned out in the Lakehurst disaster in May 1937.

The use of airships in WW1 as long-range bombers targeting e.g. Great Britain is a topic here too. Next to a model of the crashed Zeppelin LZ-19, which was shot down over the North Sea, is a display case with a lifebuoy (aka life ring) from the British vessel King Stephen, whose captain refused to rescue the survivors of LZ-19 and instead let them drown (against usual maritime conventions).

The glory days of Zeppelin travel across the Atlantic (and further away) is also well documented, and there are original pieces of crockery, cutlery and a menu card from that golden era which more or less ended on the day of the Hindenburg disaster. One glass display cabinet has a three-part model set showing how the accident unfolded.

A separate section also covers the use of airships in the exploration of the Arctic, including ill-fated Italian Arctic explorer Captain Umberto Nobile’s airship Italia , which crashed on to the pack ice during a storm on its return from a North Pole overflight in 1928, killing half the crew. The subsequent search-and-rescue operation then cost Roald Amundsen (who had been the first to reach the South Pole) his life when his plane crashed on the ice after an attempt to locate Nobile and the other survivors.

The largest piece in the main hall is a life-size mock-up of an airship control gondola (the “bridge” as it were), complete with dummy airship crew members at work, and a big machine gun poking out of one of the side windows. The bridge mock-up hovers over the ground floor, but stairs to a mezzanine level allow glimpses into the gondola from the rear.

The rest of this mezzanine level is focused on aircraft heavier than air as used in naval aviation, from WW1 and WWII to the modern age. Again there are plenty of aircraft scale models from all those times, but also some intriguing artefacts.

One is a metal chair salvaged from the wreck of the German cruiser Prinz Eugen, which at the end of WWII was transferred to the US Navy who subsequently used the ship in the nuclear test at Bikini Atoll. The ship survived the blast but later capsized after having been towed away.

Another dark artefact is a cluster of wreck pieces from a Lockheed F-104 “Starfighter” plane used by the West German Navy during the Cold War. The acquisition of F-104s was highly controversial at the time (with accusations of bribes and corruption having played a major role). And the safety record of the plane was horrific. Germany lost almost a third of its over 900 “Starfighters” by 1989, and with them 116 pilots! Hence the plane became known as “Witwenmacher” (‘widow-maker’).

In side rooms there are also sections about naval search-and-rescue missions, about naval reconnaissance, life rafts and so on. The largest item in the indoor exhibitions is a full-scale simulator used in training personnel in naval reconnaissance on the aircraft Bréguet “Atlantic” (aka “Atlantique”), a type that was in service with the "Marineflieger" between 1965 and 2005, flying out of Nordholz. But apparently this simulator is not accessible at all times. I was just lucky.

In the open-air area of the museum just under 20 genuine aircraft of various types are on display, plus some aircraft parts, equipment pieces, engines, wreck pieces, etc. – and among the planes to be seen are some that were used by the East German (GDR) Navy (“Volksmarine”). One of the East’s Soviet-built Mil Mi-8 helicopters can be entered.

Among the West German naval planes on display are, of course, a Lockheed F-104 “Starfighter” (see above) and two of the successor model, the Panavia “Tornado”, a Fairey “Gannet” and as the largest piece a Bréguet “Atlantic” (another one is parked on a square just outside the museum next to the gate to the Nordholz naval airbase).

Some of the large planes can be partly accessed inside – but only at certain times spread over the day. This includes what I found the most intriguing and interesting of all the planes here: a rare VFW 614. This not so well-known type was the first jet aircraft to be developed in Germany since WWII. It’s a small passenger jet with an unusual design, namely with the two jet engines not hanging under the wings, as is common with most other passenger jets (except those few with aft-mounted engines), but sitting on pylons atop the wings. The idea was that it makes the engines less susceptible to sucking up dirt or gravel when used on rough airfields (as it was intended for use e.g. in Africa). Apparently pilots liked the plane’s handling and flight behaviour. But in the end it was a commercial failure. It was a sales flop and so only about a dozen aircraft of this type were built and sold.

One institution that used three of those VFW 614s was the “Flugbereitschaft” of the West German Ministry of Defence. They were used for flying high-ranking politicians on short-haul routes. When I visited the Aeronauticum I was lucky that it was at a time when visitors were allowed inside the plane – and a member of the museum staff was on hand to provide historical and technical details. For instance, that then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was flown from Bonn to Berlin in this very plane for the signing of the treaty that sealed German reunification in 1990. Another detail she shared was that because of Kohl’s size (and girth!) he could enter the plane’s tiny toilet cubicle in the aft only by walking in backwards, as he was too big to be able to turn around inside.

In a far corner of the museum’s area is a fairly new addition in the form of a section about the “Marinebahn”, i.e. ‘naval railway’, as apparently was used at the Nordholz base. On display are a locomotive in a shed and a couple of freight carriages outside. Panels inside the shed also cover the topic of forced labour for Nazi Germany during WWII. Interestingly, there is also a chart mapping the contents and layout of the USAF Museum in Dayton, USA (why it is here, I do not know).

In a separate hall there is a workshop in which the reconstruction of an Arado Ar 196 is ongoing. This was a type of naval plane launched from catapults aboard warships such as the cruiser Prinz Eugen (see above). In the rest of the space are more models and text panels, some of which, again, touch upon the dark topic of forced labour during WWII but also ones about the history of airships used in Arctic exploration (such as the Italia – see above).

A section of the entrance building features a collection of models of rockets of all sorts and of a few super-fast planes. The rest of this part of the building is occupied by the museum shop selling all manner of tack and souvenirs and also items of clothing. And finally there’s a museum café too.

All in all, I was positively surprised with how good this museum turned out to be. I hadn’t even known about it before my sister (who lives in this part of northern Germany) suggested it during a visit and then drove us there. I’m so glad she did.

Of course, with everything being in German only, visitors without at least a decent grasp of the language will get much less out of this museum. But if you do know enough German it’s very illuminating and captivating, especially the parts about airships, other highlights are some of the planes on open-air display, especially the VFW 614. But I was impressed overall with this off-the-beaten-track little gem of a museum.

Location: on Peter-Strasser-Platz 3, a bit to the east of Nordholz, ca. 8 miles (12 km) south of Cuxhaven and ca. 20 miles (32 km) north of Bremerhaven.

Google Maps locator: [53.7750, 8.6385]

Access and costs: a bit off the beaten track but not too hard to get to; fairly reasonably priced for what you get.

Details: Getting to the museum is easiest by car. The location just off the main trunk road B73 makes it convenient to reach from Cuxhaven in the north, or by the motorway A27 from the south (e.g. Bremerhaven); exit at Nordholz (exit 3) and take the road Wanhödener Straße west and north to where it connects with the B73 and head along this northwards for a short distance. There are about 40 parking spaces (free of charge) right by the museum.

It’s also possible to get there by public transport. Nordholz is on the main train line between Bremerhaven and Cuxhaven. From the station it’s a ca. 15-minute walk east along Bahnhofstraße. There are also buses (line 550 from Bremerhaven, line 1021 from Cuxhaven – the latter has a dedicated stop “Aeronauticum”).

Opening times: between 15 March and 31 October daily from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; the rest of the year only open to 4 p.m.; note that there are longer periods of closure in November, early December, and most of January; also closed on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Better head there between spring and autumn.

Admission: 14 EUR

As pointed out above, all labels and texts in the museum are in German only. However, the museum also offers guided tours in English, for groups of max. 25 participants (the official website does not state a minimum group size or whether individual guided tours are an option – you’d have to enquire) and of 60, 90 or 120 minutes duration (fees: 60, 85, 100 EUR). Such tours should be arranged well in advance (email: info[at]aeronauticum.de).

Time required: I spent a bit under two and a half hours at the Aeronauticum; but if you want to read absolutely everything there is (provided you can understand German) then you may need longer. A casual visit without reading much could be shorter, but I’d say one hour minimum.

Combinations with other dark destinations: In Cuxhaven, just a few miles north of Nordholz, you can find an unusual Shipwreck Museum.

To the south in Bremerhaven there’s the German Emigration Museum as well as a maritime museum (Deutsches Schifffahrtsmuseum) and the unique Klimahaus (a comprehensive and quite interactive exhibition about climate zones, weather and, of course, climate change; daily 10-18h, 25.50 EUR). To be found here as well is the U-Boat Wilhelm Bauer (originally U-2540), the most advanced German WWII-era submarine, now a museum too.