There are two types of educational day out with children. The first involves everyone pretending to be interested while shuffling past laminated signs. The second involves your child crawling through a tunnel to experience what it’s like to be a hare, listening to birdsong through giant ears, and leaving with an actual opinion on wild boar habitat. Botschaft der Wildtiere is the second kind.
Opened in summer 2024 by the Deutsche Wildtier Stiftung, it’s a permanent indoor home for Germany’s wild animals, right in the middle of HafenCity. Across 2,200 square metres on two floors, the interactive exhibition brings visitors face-to-face with the roughly 48,000 animal species native to Germany, without requiring anyone to wear sensible shoes in a forest.
What’s Actually There
The exhibition is built around doing, not just looking. Interactive stations let visitors step into the sensory world of different animals: hearing through the ears of a field hare, moving like a sparrow, understanding how a badger navigates by smell. There’s no glass-case-and-placard energy here. The displays are designed for hands-on engagement, which in practice means kids stay interested and parents aren’t constantly redirecting attention.
Alongside the main exhibition, the building houses Germany’s only dedicated wildlife cinema. The Naturfilmkino runs nature documentaries on a regular programme, including a weekly Wednesday evening screening. Films change throughout the year and cover everything from European river ecosystems to nocturnal forest life. Cinema tickets are separate from exhibition entry and need to be booked in advance via the website.
There’s also a Lernwerkstatt, a learning workshop space used by school groups in the mornings. In the afternoons it doubles as a birthday party venue, which needs advance booking. And there’s a Wildtier-Shop on-site, open during exhibition hours and free to browse without an entry ticket.
Getting There
The address is Lucy-Borchardt-Straße 2, 20457 Hamburg. The nearest U-Bahn stops are HafenCity Universität (U4) and Elbbrücken (U4, S3, S5). Bus 111 stops at Gerda-Gmelin-Platz and Lola-Rogge-Platz nearby. Street and paid parking are available in the area, but public transport is the easier option.
The building is fully wheelchair and stroller accessible, with a lift connecting the ground floor to the upper level.
The on-site restaurant is currently closed. There’s no café for parents right now, so come caffeinated or factor in a coffee stop in HafenCity before or after.
Why Parents Love It
- Children under 14 enter the exhibition free, adults pay €8 (or €5 on Tuesdays)
- Fully accessible building with lift to upper floor and accessible toilets
- Compact enough that you don’t lose children, spacious enough that they don’t feel contained
- Works just as well on a grey Tuesday as a sunny Saturday
Why Kids Love It
- Interactive stations that let you become the animal, not just read about it
- A real wildlife cinema screening actual nature documentaries
- It feels like a discovery, not a lesson
- Visitors report it works well from around age 4 or 5, though this is unverified
