History of the museum

The vineyard, which today houses a large part of Kassel's cultural landscape, including the Grimm World, Museum of Hessian History and New Gallery, is closely interwoven with the city's history. In the middle of the 19th century, the Henschel family, a family of factory owners, acquired part of the land on and around the vineyard. There, high above Kassel, they settled in the "Villa Henschel", completed in 1870 on behalf of the married couple Oscar and Sophie Henschel. Since 2014/15, the Grimm World has stood on the site of the estate, which was destroyed in the Second World War. The "Haus Henschel", with which the son Karl Henschel had the largest of the two estates built on the site, was completed in 1904 and shortly afterwards, at the beginning of the 1930s, demolished again. There are numerous speculations about the reasons for this. Finally, the stable and shed building, built in 1903 as part of the Henschel House, now houses the Central Institute and Museum for Sepulchral Culture as well as the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Friedhof und Denkmal e. V. (Study Group Cemetery and Monument). In 1951 the study group was founded, followed by the Central Institute in 1979 and the "Foundation Central Institute and Museum for Sepulchral Culture" in 1984.