Opening hours:
Tuesday to Saturday from 9 to 11.30 am and from 14 to 16.30 pm.
(closed from Good Friday to Easter and from Christmas to Mid-January)


Albert Schweitzer's daughter, Rhena, donated her father's house to the International Association. From that time it was possible to transform a part of the house into a museum.
Formerly, the visitors where especially people who knew well "the Jungle Doctor", while today an increasing number of young people are attracted by Albert Schweitzer's life and thoughts. And everything in the house reminds him lively.
On the right of the entry is Dr. Schweitzer's study and bedroom, which is kept exactly as he left it the last time he was in Gunsbach in 1959. The only thing, which has been added, is his cradle. The family offered it to the museum after his death.
In the corner, on the table is the life-sized reproduction of the head of an African, formally part of the monument dedicated to Admiral Bruat in Colmar, surrounded by the four continents made by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. This statue made a deep impression on the young boy. He said, "His face, with its sad, thoughtful expression, spoke to me of the misery of the Dark Continent".
Dr. Schweitzer himself put up the organ photos on the staircase. They are instruments he had played on all over Europe. It was his way to raise money for his hospital in Lambarene.

Over the door of his bedroom is a painting of a Japanese painter "Veneration Vitae" which means, "Reverence for Life". This was the principle, on which his whole philosophy was based. He wrote: “The greatest good is to preserve life, to promote life to raise life to the highest value which it is capable of. The greatest evil is to destroy life, to injure life, to repress life which is capable of development"

All this he put into practise at Lambaréné. And he tried to make men aware of their responsibilities towards all life. The Nobel-Peace-Prize, awarded to him in 1953 for the year 1952 is also shown.
The family tree shows how Albert Schweitzer and the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre were second cousins.
Several photographs representing the old hospital and the new one show us that both, men and animals received treatments and how Lambaréné is still necessary today.
In the former living room is Schweitzer's piano fitted with organ pedals on which he played for 48 years in Lambaréné. It was a gift from the Paris Bach Society. He received it 1912, as a reward and in gratitude for the many years during which he acted as organist to the Bach Society. It was a precious instrument to him as it was specially built for the tropics. It is made of hardwood lined with zinc and everything is screwed instead of glued, as the humidity in Lambarene is 100%. With the pedals he could practise as on a real organ.
On the walls are photographs of his parents and friends, concert programmes, an autograph of Franz Liszt offered to Albert Schweitzer by the town of Paris in 1949, paintings and silhouettes made by a fellow-prisoner at St. Rémy de Provence in 1917.
In the showcases are several pieces of souvenirs.
Then, there is the little folding-table on which he wrote letters and scripts for his books during the travels between Europe and Africa; and on which he also practised piano when he had no instrument at his disposal.

The African Museum