The Augsburg Puppet Theatre Museum, established in 2001, is the museum of the Augsburger Puppenkiste, the small puppet theatre founded in Spitalgasse in 1948. The Puppenkiste is one of many people's fondest childhood memories.

A theatre with wooden actors
The Augsburg Puppet Theatre Museum ("Die Kiste") is on the first floor of the Augsburg Puppet Theatre, which is in the former Hospital of the Holy Spirit. For more than 50 years, the Puppet Theatre has been delighting children and adults with its wooden "stars on strings", wooden dolls and marionettes operated from a cross-shaped manipulator. Although only able to express feeling through gestures, the Augsburg Puppet Theatre marionettes are much loved in Germany because of their regular TV appearances. They fill the marionette theatre with life and are its main focal point. But there are also lots of exciting things to discover about what goes on behind the scenes . And to experience the wooden heroes in action, there are two small cinemas showing 50 years of TV classics from the Augsburg Puppet Theatre.

The history of the Augsburg Puppet Theatre is presented in approx. 570 m² of exhibition space where the popular marionettes can be seen in their "natural setting". All the well-loved characters are here: Tomcat Mikesch, Urmel the Dinosaur, Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver, King Kalle Wirsch and the Subterraneans, the Cat with the Hat and other handcarved figures from TV programmes and puppet plays. They all tackle life's adventures in lovingly told stories. Scenery, designs and costume illustrations are on show in between the puppet theatre sets.
» www.augsburger-puppenkiste.de

A selection of other children's museums in Germany