Back at the German History Museum

When I first visited Berlin in 2012, the highlight of the trip for me was the German History Museum. I loved going through 2000 years of history over the course of three hours and just learning as much as I could about Germany and how much it’s been through and the progression it has made over the course of history.

After Ahmad and I decided we wanted to honeymoon in Berlin, the first thing I put on our itinerary was the DHM. Ahmad, like myself, is a history buff and I knew he would appreciate the trip. My prediction was right because we’re still talking about this to this day.

Unfortunately for him though, we completely messed up on the scheduling. We’d spent the morning dodging the Berlin marathon while attempting to do a walking tour of the city. Then we spent about an hour just waiting for two pasta dishes because they only had one waiter on hand at the restaurant. So we arrived at the museum about an hour and a half before they were due to close.

An hour and a half would normally be enough to see any museum anywhere in the world, except this one is massive. The permanent exhibition alone is two large floors with over 8000 objects, but then you get to factor their special exhibitions in the IM Pei building and you could easily spend half the day there. When we visited, they had four special exhibitions running so we only chose to see one called 1945: how 12 European countries dealt with the impact World War II once it ended.

We then went upstairs to view the main part of the museum, and I have to say that I was still as impressed with it as I was the first time around. That’s a sign of a truly great museum: that it can still get to you and teach you something new even if it’s not your first time there. It is so well curated even though you may feel like an information overload.

Here are some photos we took while we were there:

Unfortunately, we were kicked out at 6 PM so we had to rush through the best part of the exhibit, Germany from 1918 to 1994. I wish the museum could’ve stayed open for longer so we could have taken our time, but even with the little we saw, it was still enough to educate us and leave us with a long lasting impression and better understanding of what is one of the world’s major countries.