Visiting Germany’s Technik Museum Speyer
Cars, planes, trains… even a submarine and a cinema
A SKYLINE OF aircraft is the first sight of Speyer Technical Museum, not far from Hockenheim and Heidelberg. There are jet fighters and airliners in spectacular climb mode and others on lofty perches. Staircases allow the visitor to enter many of them. Take a mat with you and you can return to the ground from most of them using helterskelters. This is a museum with a difference.
The foyer houses varying exhibitions and offers tickets for the IMAX Dome 3D cinema, with 65x85ft screens and 22,000 watts of sound. You might welcome that as a rest for tired legs after a couple of hours. Into the museum proper and your breath will be taken away by the sheer scale of the place. Aircraft hang from the ceiling everywhere, from a Wright Flyer replica, through both World Wars into the jet age with a golden Royal Canadian Air Force F-86 Sabre. There are monster steam locomotives and a 1920 diesel generator engine the size of a house.
Next, a large collection of fire engines, plus a 1914 Delahaye used for winching observers in a captive balloon to peer into enemy trenches. A replica of von Richtofen’s Fokker triplane hangs nearby, ready to bring down any balloon and its pesky occupants.
Cars? Dozens of them, with a fine vintage section featuring Maybach, Mercedes-Benz, Lancia, Rolls-Royce and more. One of the most interesting is a replica of the 1928 Opel RAK2 experimental car with wings either side of the driver’s compartment, controlled by a lever to create downforce. That year, at AVUS speedway in front of thousands of spectators, Fritz von Opel did a demo. Many of the 24 rockets are said not to have fired, but those that did propelled the black missile to 140mph, Fritz hanging on with little time or inclination to experiment with that lever.
Among the racing motorcycles is another replica, one of the NSU Delphin III that reached 211mph in 1956 on Bonneville Salt Flats. It’s as streamlined as nature’s dolphins.
Back outside, you can climb onto the wing of a Boeing 747 and into an Antonov An-22. Their arrival at Speyer is a story in itself, the Boeing travelling by road and the huge Antonov flying into the 1300m airstrip. You can even get married on board, in its cathedral-sized interior. The 1966 Federal Navy U-9 submarine also had a tricky arrival, by road and canal from Holland.
The best family feature at Speyer is the fantastic children’s playground, making it a great target for a family day out. A large restaurant serves hearty German food and a hardback, inch-thick museum guide is on offer in the well-stocked shop. Another part of the museum houses a collection of mechanical musical instruments, plus uniforms, costumes, weapons and jewellery.
There really is something for everybody at Speyer. It also has its own hotel and caravan park. All told, it’s rather wunderbar.