Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
examples of
entartete Kunst
or “degenerate art”. Most of these were either sold off
abroad or destroyed, and a number were bought at knock-down prices by leading
Nazis, Göring among them. he Kronprinzenpalais has since played host to a variety
of organizations and temporary exhibitions.
Deutsches Historisches Museum
Unter den Linden 2 • Daily 10am-6pm • €8 •
T
030 20 30 44 44,
W
dhm.de • S-Hackescher Markt
he
Deutsches Historisches Museum
(German Historical Museum) is spread across two
buildings: the Baroque
Zeughaus
and a modern exhibition hall designed by Chinese-
American architect
I. M. Pei
. Between them they chart German history from the Dark
Ages to the present via eight thousand or so objects. You should allow at least two
hours, and with only a relatively small proportion of the exhibition in English, the
audio guide
is recommended. here's also a very tasteful and little-known cinema and
good restaurant, both entered from the Spree side of the museum.
he museum itself focuses overwhelmingly - perhaps inevitably - on military history,
though it does try to show how big events or “epochs of change” affected the masses.
It's all attractively set out and deals cleverly with di
cult or contentious areas - such as
the rise of nationalism and concepts of German nationhood - by simply providing a
balanced summary of the main facts and avoiding interpretation.
Highlights from the early collection include an extraordinary assemblage of
armour
from the old Zeughaus days - including a 15kg jousting helmet - and an impressive
collection of early sixteenth-century
bibles
, some of the first topics to be printed
anywhere. But the most engrossing exhibits are of later periods, following the French
Revolution, where the museum offers a balanced view of Prussia, attempting to explain
how it slid from being one of the most progressive parts of Europe to one of its most
militarized powers.
On display are several
helmets
- gruesomely memorable for their
bullet holes - of soldiers killed in action in World War I.
he exhibition goes on to examine Weimar Germany and the rise of philosophical
extremes, particularly communism and fascism, with insightful displays of
propagandist art and leaflets. he
Nazi Third Reich
is explored in every deplorable
detail - including the depiction of the war in Russian and American and Nazi
propaganda films
, the latter showing the
Blitzkrieg
arrive in Poland and mocking
Jewish captives in chain gangs. It also covers the GDR years, where the exhibition
splits to tell the parallel stories of the two Germanys.
THE ZEUGHAUS
Built by the Brandenburg Elector Frederick III between 1695 and 1730, the sturdy old Prussian
Arsenal, or
Zeughaus
, is Unter den Linden's oldest building. Many of the building's decorative
elements are the work of Andreas Schlüter, notably the walls of the
Schlüterhof
, the history
museum's inner courtyard, where reliefs depict the contorted faces of dying warriors. There
was much excitement at the Zeughaus on June 14, 1848, when, during revolutionary
upheavals, the people of Berlin stormed the building looking for arms. A number of citizens
were killed, and no weapons were found, but the incident gave the authorities an excuse to
bring troops into the city and ban various newspapers and democratic organizations.
Just over thirty years later the Zeughaus was turned into a Prussian army museum. During
the Nazi period it exhibited World War I propaganda - portraying the war as an undeserved
defeat and making much of the dishonest conduct of enemies during the peace treaties - and
hosted Remembrance Day speeches. At the March 1943 speech there was a failed attempt on
Hitler's life; the Führer changed his plans, giving the suicide bomber, Rudolf von Gersdorff, just
enough time to rush to the lavatory and defuse the bomb. From 1953, the heavily damaged
building became a museum of German history, at first offering the GDR's version of events
followed by, after reunification, a progressively more balanced, Western view in the Deutsches
Historisches Museum (see above).
