Museum sights in Germany
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Ddr Museum
Below the hotel, the DDR Museum teaches the rest of us about daily life behind the Iron Curtain. You'll learn that East German kids were put through collective potty training, engineers earned little more than farmers and everyone, it seems, went on nudist holidays. A must for Good Bye, Lenin! fans. The entrance is on the Spree bank, opposite the Berliner Dom.
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Deutsches Museum
You could spend days exploring the Deutsches Museum, said to be the world's largest science and technology collection. This vast museum occupies its own island southeast of Isartor (Isar Gate) and features just about anything ever invented. Interactive displays (including glass blowing and paper making), model coal and salt mines, and wonderful sections on musical instruments, caves, geodesy, micro-electronics and astronomy are just some of the delights on offer. Demonstrations take place throughout the day; a popular one is in the power hall where a staff member is raised in the insulated Faraday Cage and zapped with a 220,000V bolt of lightning. There is also a fascinat…
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Deutsches Historisches Museum
If you're wondering what the Germans have been up to for the past 2000 years, pop into the excellent Deutsches Historisches Museum. A startling highlight is the big globe that originally stood in the Nazi Foreign Office with bullet holes where Germany should be. In the courtyard, Andreas Schlüter's baroque mask sculptures of dying soldiers make a strong case against war. High-calibre temporary exhibits take up a strikingly geometrical annexe, called IM Pei Bau, named for the architect that designed it.
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Stasi Museum
The former head office of the Ministry of State Security is now the Stasi Museum, where you can marvel at cunningly low-tech surveillance devices (hidden in watering cans, rocks, even neckties), a prisoner transport van with teensy, lightless cells and the obsessively neat offices of Stasi chief Erich Mielke. Panelling is in German only and exhibits are not always self-explanatory, so you may want to invest a few euros in the English-language booklet.
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Neues Museum
After 10 years and €200 million, the reconstructed Neues Museum finally opened in October 2009. David Chipperfield harmoniously incorporated remnants of the war-damaged structure into the new building, which presents the Egyptian Museum (including the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti) and the Papyrus Collection.These are joined by the Museum of Pre- and Early History and works from the Collection of Classical Antiquities.
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Verkehrsmuseum
Nuremberg's Verkehrsmuseum combines two major exhibits under one roof: the Deutsche Bahn Museum (German Railway Museum) and the Museum für Kommunikation (Museum of Telecommunications). The former explores the origins and history of Germany's legendary railway system; the latter showcases development in telecommunications, including historic telephones dating back over 100 years.
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Neues Museum
The Neues Museum houses works of contemporary art in Weimar. The complex was built in 1863, as a gallery exclusively for works relating to Homer's Odyssey, but another odyssey occurred after it was used as a Halle der Volksgemeinschaft (literally 'people's solidarity hall') by the Nazis, and was then renamed Karl-Marx-Platz under the GDR.
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Nuremberg Trials Courthouse
Nazis were tried for crimes against peace and humanity in the Schwurgerichtssaal 600 (Courtroom 600). The Allies chose Nuremberg for obvious symbolic reasons. The building was also easily accessible and one of few such complexes to survive the war intact. Held between 1945 and 1946, 22 leaders and 150 underlings were convicted; dozens were executed.
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Reichsparteitagsgelände
Nuremberg's role during the Third Reich is emblazoned in minds around the world through the images of rapturous Nazi supporters thronging the city's streets to salute their Führer. The rallies at the Reichsparteitagsgelände were part of an orchestrated propaganda campaign that began as early as 1927 to garner support for the NSDAP, which had a strong following in Nuremberg. In 1933, the party planned a ridiculously large purpose-built complex in the southeastern Luitpoldhain suburb.
In doing this Nazi leaders hoped to establish a metaphorical link between Nuremberg's illustrious past as Reichstagstadt (where parliament met during the Holy Roman Empire) and the Third Rei…
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Münchner Stadtmuseum
You could spend hours roaming through the collections of the rambling Münchner Stadtmuseum, making it a perfect rainy day destination.
Historical exhibits help you understand how the royal residence evolved into today's modern metropolis, but the main artistic draw is the ensemble of Erasmus Grasser's 10 spritelike Morris Dancers (1480), medieval travelling entertainers who performed at court and on market squares. The late Gothic figures originally adorned the ballroom of the Altes Rathaus.
Also of special note is the small but powerful section on Munich during the Third Reich that forms an enlightening complement to the nearby Jüdisches Museum (Jewish Museum). Set in a …
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Gründerzeit Museum
Quite frankly, this museum in the far-flung suburb of Mahlsdorf would be just another dusty collection of period rooms had its founder not been the GDR’s most famous transvestite and gay icon. And what a life s/he led! Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, neé Lothar Berfelde, was born in 1928 and, much to the consternation of her Nazi father, was much more into dresses and dolls than trains and automobiles. Papa Berfelde’s efforts to whup his son into manhood ended abruptly when s/he bludgeoned him to death with his own revolver at the tender age of 15. After a short stint in prison, Charlotte turned into the ultimate pack rat, eventually assembling enough furnishings and bric-a-brac…
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Residenzschloss
The neo-Renaissance Residenzschloss was the home of Saxon kings until 1918. With postwar reconstruction nearly completed, the must-see Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vault) has returned to the palace. Picture it as the real-life equivalent of Aladdin's Cave, a mind-boggling collection of precious objects wrought from gold, ivory, silver, diamonds and other materials. There's so much of it, it's shown in two separate 'treasure chambers', both in the palace west wing (enter from Sophienstrasse).
The Neues Grünes Gewölbe (New Green Vault) presents some 1000 objects in 10 modern rooms on the upper floor. Among the most prized items are a frigate fashioned from ivory with wafer-thin…
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Schloss Köpenick
On a little island just south of the Altstadt (via Alt-Köpenick), the baroque Köpenick Palace served not only as a royal residence but also as a prison and a teaching seminary before becoming a museum in 1963. Since 1990 it’s been home to a branch of the Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts). Exhibits showcase a rich and eclectic collection of decorative furniture, tapestries, porcelain, silverware, glass and other items from the Renaissance, baroque and rococo periods. Highlights include four lavishly panelled rooms and the stunning Wappensaal (Coat of Arms Hall). It was in this very hall where, in 1730, a military court meted out questionable justice agains…
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Zitadelle Spandau
The 16th-century Spandau Citadel, on a little island in the Havel River, is one of the most important and best-preserved Renaissance fortresses in the world. With its moat, drawbridge and arrowhead-shaped bastions, it is also a veritable textbook in military architecture. Imagine yourself a guard keeping an eye out for enemies as you climb up the crenellated tower called Juliusturm. From 1874 to 1919, somewhere deep in the tower’s bowels, Prussia’s rulers hid the war booty wrestled from France after the war of 1870–71. If you want to fill any gaps in your historical knowledge, drop by the Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Spandau (Spandau City History Museum) in the forme…
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Ökowerk
t may have a terrifying name, but at 115m high, the Teufelsberg (Devil’s Mountain), just south of the Olympic grounds, ain’t no Matterhorn. It is, however, the tallest of Berlin’s 20 ‘rubble mountains’, built by citizens, initially most of them women, during the clean-up of their bomb-ravaged city after WWII. It took 20 years to pile up 25 million cubic metres of debris. The curious domed structure up on top used to be a listening station operated by the Allies during the Cold War. The hill that was born from destruction is now a fun zone, especially in snowy winters when hordes of squealing kids toboggan or ski down its gentle slopes. At other times you can explore the t…
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Museum Berlin-Karlshorst
In the waning days of WWII, this building served as the headquarters of the Soviet army. On 8 May 1945, German commanders signed the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht here. The war was over. Since 1995 a joint Russian-German exhibit has commemorated this fateful day and the events leading up to it. Documents, photographs, uniforms and various knick-knacks illustrate such topics as the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the daily grind of life as a WWII Soviet soldier and the fate of Soviet civilians during wartime. You can stand in the great hall where the surrender was signed and see the office of Marshal Zhukov, the first Soviet supreme commander after WWII when the building wa…
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Escape Museum
In the secluded Zwickauer Mulde valley, 46km south of Leipzig, lies the sleepy town of Colditz and its impressive (though rundown) fortress. The Renaissance structure was used by Augustus the Strong as a hunting lodge in the 17th century and became a mental hospital in the 1800s. In WWII the Nazis converted it into a high-security prison, known as Oflag IVc (Officer’s Camp IVc). Its inmates, mostly Allied officers who had already escaped from other prisons, proved that putting hardened jail-breakers together was a mistake. Between 1939 and 1945 there were more than 300 escape attempts, earning Colditz the reputation as a ‘bad boys’ camp. In all, 31 men managed to flee, ai…
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Mendelssohn Exhibit
The Mendelssohns are one of the great German family dynasties, starting with the pater familias, the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86). Also known as the German Socrates, he was the founder of the Haskalah movement (the Jewish Enlightenment) that sought to create a modern, secular Jewish identity. In 1815 his sons Joseph and Abraham (father of composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy) founded a private banking house in Jägerstrasse 51, Berlin’s historical banking quarter. In 1938, the bank was forced into bankruptcy – many family members had fled Nazi Germany. Today an exhibit in the resurrected headquarters traces the fate and history of this influential family. Numero…
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Erotik Museum
Relax, it’s just sex… Right on a suitably seedy corner, Berlin’s Erotik Museum is a shrine to human sexuality, a three-storey tower of titillation, a monument to physical pleasure. Or is it? OK, we’ll leave that up to you to judge… The brainchild of Beate Uhse, Germany’s late sex-toy queen, the museum is stacked with over 3000 items of erotica from around the world. There’s plenty of artsy stuff like Japanese Shunga art (with exaggerated genitalia), Chinese sex-ed ‘wedding tiles’ and hardcore watercolours by George Grosz. The fetish dioramas are downright tacky, but the early erotic films and historic chastity belts are quite amusing. Naturally, Frau Uhse gets a shrine to…
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Heimatmuseum
With its frilly turrets, soaring tower and stepped gable, Köpenick’s town hall (Rathaus; Alt-Köpenick 21) exudes a fairytale quality but is actually more famous for an incident back in 1906. It involved an unemployed cobbler named Wilhelm Voigt, who managed to make a laughing stock of the Prussian authorities: costumed as an army captain, he marched upon the town hall, arrested the mayor, confiscated the city coffers and disappeared with the loot. And no one questioned his authority! At least for a while. Although quickly caught and convicted, Voigt became quite a celebrity for his chutzpah. Today a bronze statue of the Hauptmann of Köpenick guards the town hall entrance.…
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Jüdisches Museum
For an eye-opening, emotional and interactive exploration of 2000 years of Jewish history in Germany visit the impressive Jüdisches Museum. You'll learn about Jewish cultural contributions, holiday traditions, the difficult road to Emancipation, and outstanding individuals, such as jeans inventor Levi Strauss and philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Only one section deals directly with the Holocaust, but its horrors are poignantly reflected by Daniel Libeskind's powerful museum building. Essentially a 3-D metaphor for Jewish suffering, its silvery zinc walls are sharply angled, and instead of windows there are only small gashes piercing the building's gleaming skin. The visual …
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Gruselkabinett Berlin
This ‘horror cabinet’ is housed within a WWII air-raid shelter, once part of a network of bunkers, including Hitler’s, which extended for miles beneath the city. A small exhibit in the basement has displays on the bunker’s history along with wartime-era newspapers, recordings of Allied plane attacks and a smattering of actual belongings left behind by those once holed up here during the bombing raids. Other exhibits are more hokey than historical, but seem to score well with teenaged school groups thanks perhaps to the eccentric couple who run the place. On the ground floor, groaning dummies demonstrate the niceties of medieval surgery techniques, and upstairs you’ll be s…
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Café Sybille
One of the most popular cafés in East Berlin until the fall of the Wall, Café Sybille closed in 1997, but was taken over in 2001 by a nonprofit organisation. Exuding sober early ’60s charm, it’s a great spot for a coffee break but also for digging up more information about the history of Karl-Marx-Allee (KMA). An ever-growing exhibit pulls away the curtain on the past of this famous boulevard, charting its milestones from inception to today. There are portraits and biographies of the architects, alongside posters, toys and other items from socialist times; even a piece of Stalin’s moustache scavenged from the nearby statue that was torn down in 1961. For a bird’s-eye view…
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Georg Kolbe Museum
Georg Kolbe (1877–1947) was one of Germany’s most influential sculptors in the first half of the 20th century. A member of the Berlin Secession, he distanced himself from traditional sculpture and became a chief exponent of the idealised nude. After his wife’s death in 1927, Kolbe’s figures took on a more solemn and emotional air, whereas his later works focus on the athletic male, an approach that found favour with the Nazis. The attractive museum, in Kolbe’s former studio, shows works from all phases of the artist’s life alongside temporary exhibits often drawn from his rich private collection of 20th-century sculpture and paintings. The sculpture gar…
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Holstentor City Gate & City Museum
Lübeck's small Holstentor city gate really is quite stunning. It captivated Andy Warhol (his print of it is in the St Annen Museum) and it's a sight where people sit and stare. Its twin, pointy-roofed circular towers, tilting together across a stepped gable, have made it a true German icon, which has graced postcards, paintings, posters, marzipan souvenirs and even the old DM50 note, as you'll discover in the engaging City History Museum inside.
Built in 1464, the gate been under renovation recently, but should be out of its trompe l'oeil wraps by now, so that its famous Latin inscriptions are visible: 'Concordia Domi Foris Pax' (roughly translated as 'Harmony within, pe…
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