The Engels-Haus in the Barmen district is the birthplace of Friedrich Engels, co-author of the Communist Manifesto and lifelong collaborator with Karl Marx. The house dates from the early 19th century and is now a small museum tracing Engels's life from his Wuppertal childhood through his years in Manchester and his intellectual partnership with Marx.
The exhibition is clear and well organised. It is not a large museum — two hours is plenty — but it covers the development of Engels's ideas in a way that gives real weight to the industrial landscape of Wuppertal itself. Standing here and looking out over the valley where his father's textile mills once operated gives context to everything that followed.