Ballonmuseum Gertshofen
Bahnhofstraße 12
86368 Gersthofen
www.ballonmuseum-gersthofen.de
ballonmuseum@stadt-gersthofen.de
+49 821 2491506
Wednesday – Friday 13:00 – 17:00
Thursday 10:00 – 19:00
Saturday – Sunday 10:00 – 17:00
Closed December 25-26, December 31and January 1
Admission fee
Gift shop
- The beginnings of ballooning in Germany
- Technology, balloon production and balloon sports
- The balloon in the service of science and military
- Records and disasters
- The “air ball” conquers the world
- Alfred Eckert aeronautics collection
One of the museum’s particularly noteworthy exhibits is a replica of the gas balloon prototype with which Joseph Maximilian Baron von Lütgendorf unsuccessfully attempted to conquer the skies from Augsburg and Gersthofen in 1786, becoming the first German balloonist to do so. The new museum building is built virtually around this balloon with its ornate ship-shaped Renaissance gondola.
On the first floor the spherical pressure capsule of the balloon is exhibited, with which Auguste Piccard successfully set his stratospheric altitude record (15,785 m) from Augsburg in 1931.