The most important testimony to the history of the Teutonic Order (Deutscher Orden) is Mergentheim Palace itself, which served as the residence of the Grand Masters (Hochmeister) from 1527 to 1809. Since 1996 the entire building complex is used as a museum. The various exhibits focus on the culture and the works of the Teutonic Order from its beginnings as a hospital order in the time of the Crusades up to the present. The entire third floor unfolds this eight hundred years of Order history in a chronological and thematically structured walking tour.
First visitors can inform themselves on the founding of the Teutonic Order on the occasion of the Crusades in the 12th century. Every man who entered the Order took an oath on chastity, obedience and a life in poverty. At the same time the Order also saw itself as a fighting order of knights that followed the Pope's calls to liberate the Holy Sepulcher of Christ in Jerusalem from the Muslims.
The Order achieved international importance and wealth, which it had also purchased from rich noble and patrician families due to the Crusades indulgence. Each year new Order chapters were founded. In 1300 there were already 300 commendams (administrative areas) from Sweden to Southern Europe. The Order saw its duties in protecting pilgrims, fighting against non-Christians in the Holy Land and in social services such as founding and maintaining hospitals.
To defend and administrate the countries in the East, cities and defensive buildings were erected in Prussia and Livonia, where the Order was in possession of a more or less closed territory up until the early 16th century. The exhibition shows an impressive example with the model of Rehden Castle in the region around Kulm.
The gems of the museum include the Old and New Sovereign's Apartment (Alte und Neue Fürstenwohnung). In the rooms of the Old Sovereign's Apartment the Order's Mergentheim period from 1527 to 1809 is dealt with. Here a model illustrates what the water-surrounded castle enlarged to a Renaissance residence looked like around 1650. The representation requirements of the headquarters of the Teutonic Order, the members of which were subjected to increasingly exclusive and stricter terms of admission, are expressed in the numerous building projects.
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Via the choir of the Palace Church (Schlosskirche) visitors reach the New Sovereign's Apartment in the south wing, in which the arrangement of rooms of ages past, which led to the Grand Master, have been restored. These include the Gallery of Grand Masters (Hochmeistergalerie), Picture Room (Bilderzimmer), Antechamber (Vorzimmer), Audience Chamber (Audienzzimmer) with the throne and the bedroom (Schlafzimmer). This apartment was decorated and restored in a lordly style based on the inventory of 1809. In the Chapter Hall (Kapitelsaal), the meeting room of the General Chapter (Generalkapitel), the seating arrangement of 1791 has been reproduced. It was in this year that one of the last meetings of the General Chapter was held at the Palace of the Teutonic Order (Deutschordensschloss).
Another major topic deals with the revival of the Teutonic Order disbanded by Napoleon and its conversion to a clerical-ecclesiastical order devoted to charitable and pastoral tasks.
The Palace of the Teutonic Order also houses an exhibition on the history of the city and regional history of Mergentheim and the dollhouse collection, which attractively documents the cultural history of play, upbringing and living. The basic collection of the Mergentheim museum can be found in the Carl Joseph von Adelsheim Collection. This "collection of classical antiquity" contains 511 exhibits including glasses, faiences, porcelain pieces, weapons, Chinese figures, a small Franconian family altar and objects used in everyday life.
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