THE GERMAN HISTORICAL MUSEUM, UNTER DEN LINDEN, BERLIN
The German Historical Museum, Unter den Linden, Berlin
The German Historical Museum is a very dull, predictable museum indeed. If Germans really wanted to underline the most facile, obvious, dull, boring aspects of their history, then the German Historical Museum would be that monument. Treating German history as a linear essay, a parade of facts and dates dotted with the biographies of Great Men, the German Historical Museum trots out all its dullness over and over again. Proceeding from early German History by way of middle German History, we eventually get to late German History. There is so much predictability in this Museum it is difficult to know where to begin. Firstly, the early and middle parts of German History are dealt with cursorily, displays of (obsolete) armour, paintings of Great Men (Martin Luther). Then we get to WW1. There is a display of (obsolete) weaponry, including terrifying Medieval trench weapons that look as if they belong to the middle bit of German History. Then we proceed to WW2 with even more (obsolete) but terrifying weaponry, that includes an 88mm gun, perhaps the only piece of (obsolete) weaponry that might have a double purpose as a good place for hiding from the oppressive, aggressive Museum attendants.
Every obvious mistake of German history is paraded over and over again as if they were the actions of hideous pre-evolutionary Darwinian monkeymen. There is monkey Luther, monkey Bismarck, monkey Hitler and monkey Honecker.
Today the Germans are just likeable, eccentric types inhabiting a region somewhere between the Alps and the Baltic coast, clad in liederhosen, riding bicycles, making fart noises accompaniment to a booming Bavarian Oompah band.
Whatever happened then to real German history? Nothing much, except you will not find out much about it at the German Historical Museum. The layout is bizarrely tedious, as if the curators wanted to send out a message to the public. Their cry is convincing. The Museum does everything it can to make history really uninteresting, unexciting. It does nothing to suggest continuity between events, underscoring again and again how violent, dark and terrible the past was through constant displays of (obsolete) weaponry, ponderous portraits of events and dour old men. Its almost telling us: look at this heap of mistakes but the present is so much better. But is it?
The Nazi bit encapsulates much of what the Museum really means. Militarism, terrorism, anti-semitic lies (and much, much other boring rubbish) lie at the heart of German history. Not the intellectuals, the artists, the movements, cultural, political but big, murderous blundering blunderbusses. And these blunderbusses do not come much more obvious, much more idiotic, presumptious, silly, cruel or cowardly than the Nazi movement itself. The real smack in the face comes with the exhibition about the GDR (Honecker´s German Democratic Republic). A billboard accounces: ´chemicals are good´. They make you healthy, prosperous, increase your appetites for food and sex, they make your wallet bigger too. The even bigger lie than the Nazi movement or the GDR is the German Historical Museum itself. Dull, predictable and uninteresting. Tedium piled on tedium. When there could have been an imaginative way of putting across German history which might include some account of the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Schiller, Goethe, Brecht, Freud, Marx, Einstein or movements as Gothic, Expressionism, Marxism, or even a museum that decided to de-bunk individuals and movements in favour of other seemingly tangential but suggestive strategies for relating in a fun, accessible manner the things that people need to know. Not the pile of weaponry, suggestive gore piled up in the Museum in Unter den Linden. (I didn’t see a single linden tree there.)
Paul Murphy, Berlin
Hi. Today I went to the German Historical Museum on Unter den Linden. A really good summary of German history, some of the exhibits were surprising. Some really good portraits, such as Lucas Cranach's portrait of Luther. It's interesting to see the portrayal of WW1 and WW2 from 'the other side', but the exhibit´s are mostly a depiction of evil people who really had nothing to do with Germany but just appeared and then went away again. There's no attempt to ask really difficult questions about German history: why was Prussia synonomous with militarism and militarists? Why, for instance, is Germany today involved in a war in Afghanistan? A war in which they unveiled the swastika symbol on their armoured vehicles? Whatever happened to Germany's stance re peace and neutrality? Was all that Pinko, Lefto talk of the `70s just a lot of bullshit? (Yes, it was...)
The German Historical Museum is a very dull, predictable museum indeed. If Germans really wanted to underline the most facile, obvious, dull, boring aspects of their history, then the German Historical Museum would be that monument. Treating German history as a linear essay, a parade of facts and dates dotted with the biographies of Great Men, the German Historical Museum trots out all its dullness over and over again. Proceeding from early German History by way of middle German History, we eventually get to late German History. There is so much predictability in this Museum it is difficult to know where to begin. Firstly, the early and middle parts of German History are dealt with cursorily, displays of (obsolete) armour, paintings of Great Men (Martin Luther). Then we get to WW1. There is a display of (obsolete) weaponry, including terrifying Medieval trench weapons that look as if they belong to the middle bit of German History. Then we proceed to WW2 with even more (obsolete) but terrifying weaponry, that includes an 88mm gun, perhaps the only piece of (obsolete) weaponry that might have a double purpose as a good place for hiding from the oppressive, aggressive Museum attendants.
Every obvious mistake of German history is paraded over and over again as if they were the actions of hideous pre-evolutionary Darwinian monkeymen. There is monkey Luther, monkey Bismarck, monkey Hitler and monkey Honecker.
Today the Germans are just likeable, eccentric types inhabiting a region somewhere between the Alps and the Baltic coast, clad in liederhosen, riding bicycles, making fart noises accompaniment to a booming Bavarian Oompah band.
Whatever happened then to real German history? Nothing much, except you will not find out much about it at the German Historical Museum. The layout is bizarrely tedious, as if the curators wanted to send out a message to the public. Their cry is convincing. The Museum does everything it can to make history really uninteresting, unexciting. It does nothing to suggest continuity between events, underscoring again and again how violent, dark and terrible the past was through constant displays of (obsolete) weaponry, ponderous portraits of events and dour old men. Its almost telling us: look at this heap of mistakes but the present is so much better. But is it?
The Nazi bit encapsulates much of what the Museum really means. Militarism, terrorism, anti-semitic lies (and much, much other boring rubbish) lie at the heart of German history. Not the intellectuals, the artists, the movements, cultural, political but big, murderous blundering blunderbusses. And these blunderbusses do not come much more obvious, much more idiotic, presumptious, silly, cruel or cowardly than the Nazi movement itself. The real smack in the face comes with the exhibition about the GDR (Honecker´s German Democratic Republic). A billboard accounces: ´chemicals are good´. They make you healthy, prosperous, increase your appetites for food and sex, they make your wallet bigger too. The even bigger lie than the Nazi movement or the GDR is the German Historical Museum itself. Dull, predictable and uninteresting. Tedium piled on tedium. When there could have been an imaginative way of putting across German history which might include some account of the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Schiller, Goethe, Brecht, Freud, Marx, Einstein or movements as Gothic, Expressionism, Marxism, or even a museum that decided to de-bunk individuals and movements in favour of other seemingly tangential but suggestive strategies for relating in a fun, accessible manner the things that people need to know. Not the pile of weaponry, suggestive gore piled up in the Museum in Unter den Linden. (I didn’t see a single linden tree there.)
Paul Murphy, Berlin
Hi. Today I went to the German Historical Museum on Unter den Linden. A really good summary of German history, some of the exhibits were surprising. Some really good portraits, such as Lucas Cranach's portrait of Luther. It's interesting to see the portrayal of WW1 and WW2 from 'the other side', but the exhibit´s are mostly a depiction of evil people who really had nothing to do with Germany but just appeared and then went away again. There's no attempt to ask really difficult questions about German history: why was Prussia synonomous with militarism and militarists? Why, for instance, is Germany today involved in a war in Afghanistan? A war in which they unveiled the swastika symbol on their armoured vehicles? Whatever happened to Germany's stance re peace and neutrality? Was all that Pinko, Lefto talk of the `70s just a lot of bullshit? (Yes, it was...)
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