Gleimhaus

His poetry collection Versuch in Scherzhaften Liedern, from 1744 or 1745 is one of the most important early documents of German anacreontics.

His Prussian war songs, written in 1757, were a milestone in the effort to bring the popular into German poetry.

At his death, the number of portraits was about 150; Today, the Gleimhaus preserves around 130 portrait paintings of 18th and early 19th century personalities, including portraits of Ewald von Kleist, Karl Wilhelm Ramler, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Klopstock, Anna Louisa Karsch, Sophie von La Roche, Johann Jakob Bodmer, Salomon Gessner, Wilhelm Heinse, and Jean Paul.

Correspondents included the writers Lessing, Klopstock, Wieland, Ewald von Kleist and Herder, the poet Anna Louisa Karsch, the painter Bernhard Rode, the theologian Spalding and the esthetician Sulzer and the count's house Stolberg-Wernigerode.

The convivial, scholarly, friendly and literary correspondence in North and Central Germany during the second half of the 18th century, concentrating on the connection between image, book and letter, is exemplified in the museum.

After Gleim's death, his grandnephew and estate administrator Friedrich Wilhelm Körte (1776-1846) kept his collections in his home, as well as in the cathedral square in Halberstadt.

Thus, in the second half of the 19th century, a part of the graphic, book and manuscript collection of the Halberstadt Oberdompredigers Christian Friedrich Bernhard Augustin (1771-1856) was incorporated into the stock of the Gleimhaus.

In 1898, the family foundation sold the house and the collections to the city of Halberstadt, which operated the Gleimhaus until the end of 1994.

Educational offers and a varied program of events for adults and children aim to bring life to the former Gleim residence, as it did in the 18th century.

These are the rooms on the upper floor whose walls are densely covered with Gleim's portrait paintings and in which festivals and readings took place in the circle of friends during his lifetime.

The Gleimhaus was included in the Blue Book of the Federal Government as a "Cultural Memorial Site with Special National Importance".