Loki and Helmut Schmidt lived in Hamburg-Langenhorn for half a century. Today, Loki and Helmut Schmidt's house is a place of contemporary history. During their lifetime, Loki and Helmut Schmidt wanted their house to be open to the public. Guided tours of the Schmidts' home have been taking place again since 2022.
There are currently no guided tours available.
We regularly raffle off places on guided tours; you can find out when the next raffle takes place in our newsletter.
Important note: The dates for the guided tours are very limited due to restrictions imposed by the Hamburg-Nord district authority.
About the house
The legendary house at Neubergerweg 80, into which the Schmidt family moved in 1961, functioned in the 1970s as a second, unofficial seat of government alongside the Chancellor's bungalow in Bonn. Schmidt's friends such as Giscard d'Estaing and Henry Kissinger were guests here. King Juan Carlos of Spain, Soviet head of state Leonid Brezhnev and Polish head of government Edward Gierek also came to the tranquil residential estate on the outskirts of the city.
For decades, Neubergerweg was also the meeting place for the "Friday Society", which met every second Friday of the month for 30 years at the invitation of the Schmidts. A lecture and discussion group made up of personalities from a wide range of disciplines - including politicians, entrepreneurs, artists, doctors and scientists - who exchanged views on world affairs.
If you are already curious, you can take a virtual tour of the building here.
The Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt Foundation is also presenting a new richly illustrated book entitled "At home with Loki and Helmut Schmidt", which takes you inside the Schmidts' home. With the book, the foundation wants to give anyone interested the opportunity to get to know the chancellor's private home in Langenhorn. "And so it is a pleasure for me as Chairman of the Board of Trustees," writes Peer Steinbrück in his foreword, "to invite you, dear readers, on a journey through 60 years of contemporary German history. Historical photographs, pictures by Hamburg photojournalist Michael Zapf and texts by the Foundation's experts will provide you with unusual insights into the lives of this couple of the century." The book comprises 224 pages and is published by Edel Books.
"At home with Loki and Helmut Schmidt. The Chancellor's House in Hamburg-Langenhorn" Published by the Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung, published by Edel Books, September 2020
ISBN 978-3-8419-0746-2
EUR 22.00
Loki and Helmut Schmidt had a fine sense of art that can be felt throughout the house. A grand piano, which Helmut Schmidt himself regularly played, bears witness to his love of music.
As admirers of Ernst Barlach, the couple regularly visited the exhibition centre named after the sculptor and draughtsman in Hamburg's Jenischpark. In autumn 2020, the museum gave a comprehensive insight into the couple's private collection for the first time. The "Kanzler's Art" exhibition comprised around 150 works, including paintings, sculptures and decorative arts from the Schmidts' home. It was realised by the Ernst Barlach Haus in close cooperation with the Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt Foundation and the Helmut and Loki Schmidt Foundation.
It is well known that the Schmidts were art lovers. However, the fact that they surrounded themselves at home with works by such great names as Marc Chagall, Otto Dix, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Pablo Picasso, Emil Nolde, Käthe Kollwitz and Paula Modersohn-Becker, among others, never ceases to amaze. The Helmut and Loki Schmidt Foundation published a book of the same name to accompany the exhibition, which was produced under the direction of art historian Dr Friederike Weimar. In addition to a picture exhibition, it contains a series of essays that shed light on the Schmidts' relationship with art.
The book "Kanzlers Kunst" is published by Dölling und Galitz Verlag. It comprises 216 pages.
"Chancellor's Art. The private collection of Helmut and Loki Schmidt" Published by the Helmut and Loki Schmidt Foundation, published by Dölling und Galitz Verlag, October 2020
ISBN 978-3-86218-134-6
EUR 34.00
The archive next door - today a place of research
As early as 2006 - when the Schmidts' home could no longer accommodate the extensive collection of documents that Helmut Schmidt had started immediately after the end of the war - he decided to have a new archive built in the direct neighbourhood of the house.
The archive can be used by researchers and other interested parties.
