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The Museum für Deutsche Geschichte and German National Identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

H. Glenn Penny III
H. Glenn Penny III
Affiliation:
University of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign
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Extract

Not far from the Brandenburger Tor on Unter den Linden, visitors to the Museum für Deutsche Geschichte (MfDG) entered Berlin's most beautiful Baroque building. Built by Europe's finest architects under the auspices of Prussia's Kings, the Zeughaus once held a collection of the nation's weapons and Prussia's trophies of war. But since its restoration in the 1950s, this eighteenth-century edifice's long sculptured hallways and high-ceilinged rooms housed the Marxist story of the German people's struggle; images of Prussian peasants, Silesian weavers, and hardened revolutionaries were arranged in glass cases, displayed upon walls and surrounded by Socialist banners, Communist papers, and early Protestant texts. Resurrected from the annals of Germany's past, these images were brought together to fashion a German history, to create the foundation for an East German national identity, and to provide legitimization for the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED).

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Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 343 - 372
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1995

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References

1. Iggers, Georg, ed. Marxist Historiography in Transformation: East German Social History in the 1980s, trans. Little, Bruce (New York, 1991)Google Scholar. Jarausch, Konrad H., “The Failure of East German Antifascism: Some Ironies of History as Politics,” German Studies Review 14 (1991); 85–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Jarausch, , ed. Zwischen Parteilichkeit und Professionalität. Bilanz der Geschichtswissenscaft der DDR (Berlin, 1991)Google Scholar; Fischer, Alexander and Heydemann, Günther, eds. Geschichtswissenschaft in der DDR, 2 vols, (Berlin, 1980–1990)Google Scholar and Iggers, , “Einige Aspekte neuer Arbeiten in der DDR über die neuere Deutsche Geschichte,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 14 (1988)Google Scholar.

2. Dorpalen, Andreas, German History in the Marxist Perspective: The East German Approach (Detroit, 1985)Google Scholar.

3. Ibid., 46–56.

4. For an analysis of the strong ideological parameters around West German historians from 1945–1960 see Schulze, Winifried, Geschichtswissenschaft in Deutschland nach 1945 (Munich, 1989)Google Scholar.

5. See for example Krisch, Henry, The German Democratic Republic: The Search for Identity, (Boulder, 1985)Google Scholar.

6. One noteworthy attempt to move beyond the semiprivate discourse of historians and into the political articulation of historical legitimization and nation building is Nothnagle, Alan, “From Buchenwald to Bismarck: Historical Myth-Building in the German Democratic Republic, 1945–1989,” Central European History, 26, no. 1 (1993): 91–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Sheehan, James J., “National History and National Identity,” German Studies Review (Winter 1992): 163–74Google Scholar. Although this is not an empirical article, Sheehan's evaluations echo many scholars' work on the GDR, including Krisch and Jarausch; see also Brinks, Jan Herman, Die DDR-Geschichtswissenschaft auf dem Weg zur deutschen Einheit. Luther, Friedrich II und Bismarck als Paradigmen politischen Wandels, (New York, 1992)Google Scholar. While these historians have emphasized the MfDG's tendency to heroize and uncritically embrace the Prussian heritage and Martin Luther during its later years, their evaluations have not recognized the degree to which the rehabilitation of Luther and others took place as part of a fundamental change which relocated GDR legitimacy in an international myth rather than Germany's national pasts.

8. Kiau, Rolf, “Zur Entwicklung der Museen der DDR,” Neue Museumskunde 12, no. 4 (1969)Google Scholar.

9. Because of the number of excellent museums in Berlin, the museum communities of the world were concerned with the state of the artifacts, artworks, and the museums themselves following Berlin's devastation during the war. Correspondents from throughout Germany visited Berlin to assess the damage, as did many from the former Allied nations, and their reports of East German efforts were generaly quite favorable. See for example: Buttlar, Herbert v., “Vom Aufbau der Berliner Museen,” Ganzes Deutschland: Freie Wochenzeitung 5, no. 33 (Heidelberg and Stuttgart, 1953): 6Google Scholar. “Die Berliner Museen in neuer Gestalt,” Die Weltkunst (15 May 1956): 8Google Scholar. Kurz, Otto, “The Present State of the Berlin Museums,” Burlington Magazine, 641 (August 1956): 235–38Google Scholar.

10. The reconstruction of the building lasted from 1952–1967. The standing display was established in sections—(1789–1871) in 1962, (1933–1945) in 1963, (1945–1949) in 1964, (1900–1919) in 1965, (1919–1933) in 1966, and (1871–1900) in 1967— as each area of the building was completed. The order in which the displays were created depended on the progress of the reconstruction and accounts for the fact that they were not established chronologically. These displays were thus an integral part of the building's reconstruction. They were supplemented by temporary exhibits held in both the Zeughaus and the museum's secondary facility at Clara-Zetkin-Strasse 26. During the 1970s sections on the early history of Germany and Europe and the history of the GDR were added to the permanent display, completing its portrayal of German history from the earliest times to the present.

11. Mansfeld, Heinz, “Zur Geschichte der Deutschen Museen,” Bildende Kunst 3, no 6 (1955): 447–50Google Scholar. The development of museums presented by Mansfeld portrays the general changes and stages commonly depicted in Western texts on museums, yet it also shows how the MfDG is the natural extension of this lineage. Cf. for example, Bazin, Germain, The Museum Age, trans. van Nuis Cahill, Jane (New York, 1967)Google Scholar; and Wittlin, Alma S., Museums: In Search of a Usable Future, (Cambridge, 1970)Google Scholar.

12. Ibid., 450.

13. A clear discussion of when the decision to create the MfDG was made, who was involved in its foundation, the importance of the 7th meeting of the Central Committee and the 3rd Party Congress, as well as the efforts to which historians such as Alfred Meusel went in order to prepare the museum for its opening in 1952, can be found in Heinz, Helmut, “Die Gründung des Museums für Deutsche Geschichte (1952),” Jahrbuch für Geschichte 20 (1979): 143–64Google Scholar; and Schmidt, Walter, “Die Geschichtswissenschaft der DDR in denfünfziger Jahren,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 31, no. 4 (1983): 292–312Google Scholar.

14. “Museum für Deutsche Geschichte—ein Träger und Mittler des Nationalbewusstseins,” Neues Deutschland, (20 January, 1952): 3.

15. Löschburg, Winfried and Büttner, Horst, Das Museum für Deutsche Geschichte, (Berlin, 1960): 12Google Scholar.

16. The history of the building is a long one which is well illustrated by Löschburg and Büttner. Their book contains a particularly good discussion of the building's reconstruction in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as an explanation of the structural and cosmetic changes which were made out of necessity and preference. They effectively show the expense, time, effort, and meticulous detail which went into its reconstruction. A shorter alternative is: Quinger, Heinz, Das Museum für Deutsche Geschichte in Berlin: Die Geschichte des Bauwerks, (Leipzig, 1975)Google Scholar.

17. “Träger und Mittler,” 3 (see note 15).

18. Ibid., 3.

19. Ingo Materna argues that the creation of the museum involved “considerable public expenditure, at a time when the battle to overcome the direct consequences of the war was still being fought.” Materna, Ingo, “The Museum of German History, Berlin,” Museum 29, no. 2/3 (1977): 88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20. Kiau, “Zur Entwicklung,” 429.

21. Herbst, Wolfgang and Materna, Ingo, “20 Jahre Museum für Deutsche Geschichte,” Neue Museumskunde 15, no. 1 (1972): 10Google Scholar.

22. See Iggers's “Forward” to Dorpalen, German History, 18.

23. This took place after international diplomatic recognition was given to the GDR in 1972Google Scholar.

24. Although the MfDG was founded in 1952, it remained in its temporary location at Clara-Zetkin-Strasse until the interior of the Zeughaus was completed in 1967.

25. Miller, Sepp, “Mehr Aufmerksamkeit dem Museum für Deutsche Geschicte,” Neuer Weg (21 November 1952): 40–42Google Scholar.

26. Ibid., 40.

27. The emphasis on the scientific nature of the museum was further reinforced by its attachment to the Ministry of Higher and Technical Education. Materna, “The Museum of German History,” 88.

28. The initial divisions were: prehistory, 4th century A.D.–1517, 1517–1848, 1848–1895, 1895–1918, 1918–1945, and contemporary history. Heinz, Helmut, “Die Konzeption der ersten Ausstellung im Museum für Deutsche Geschichte 1952,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 28, no. 4 (1980): 341Google Scholar.

29. Ibid., 344.

30. Decisions about the periodization, division, organization, and presentation of German history often sparked controversy among the Marxist historians at the MfDG and elsewhere. The leader of the section on the Middle Ages, for example, wanted to end his period at 1500, but Meusel (see note 14) argued that 1517 initiated the Arbeiterbewegung, and that it must be portrayed as the most significant turning point in German history. Meusel argued that the German peasant revolt was “die erste gesamtnationale Bewegung des deutschen Volkes” in which the people began to fight for their rights and develop the heritage of the German nation. Therefore he demanded that Martin Luther's actions be portrayed as both the end of the Middle Ages as well as the beginning of the modern period and the German peoples' heroic struggle. Heinz, “Die Konzeption,” 345.

31. Ibid., 347.

32. Geschichte, Museum für Deutsche, Lebendige Geschichte: Wegweiser durch die Ausstellungen des Museums für deutsche Geschichte, (Berlin, 1967/1968), 5Google Scholar.

33. Geschichte, Museum für Deutsche, Museumspädagogische Informationen (Berlin, 1970)Google Scholar.

34. Ibid., 13–16.

35. Krisch, , The German Democratic Republic, 85–87Google Scholar. This emphasis on the sudden shift of policy toward the past has been shared by several historians who have focused on the later years of the GDR, such as Sheehan, James J., “National History and National Identity,” and Jarausch, Konrad H., ed. Zwischen Parteilichkeit und Professionalität (Berlin, 1991)Google Scholar.

36. Brinks stresses the interrelationship of the historical profession and the political ideological framework in the GDR and argues that historians occupied a critical place in the academic sciences because of the function they served in legitimating the state. He also claims that East German historians returned to a concept of a unified German history in the 1970s and 1980s, and notes somewhat ironically that under Ulbricht they promulgated unification but stressed the differences between the reactionary West and the progressive East, while under Honecker they promulgated separation but pursued a common German history. Yet in both cases unification and a shared German past were present to some degree. See also the introductory essay by Iggers, Georg G. in Dorpalen, , German History, 17Google Scholar.

37. See, for example, Maier, Charles S., The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity (Cambridge, 1988), 124–25Google Scholar; Sheehan, , “National History,” 165–66Google Scholar; Mitchell, Ian, “Reichstag Museum and Museum of German History,” History Today 37 (Aug. 1987): 61Google Scholar.

38. Compare, for example, the lists of temporary exhibits in Herbst, Wolfgang and Wernicke, Kurt, Das Museum für Deutsche Geschichte, (Berlin, 1969), 27–32Google Scholar; and in the editorial in Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 20, no. 7 (1972): 873Google Scholar.

39. Herbst, Wolfgang, “Geschichtswissenschaft und Geschichtsmuseum,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 20, no. 1 (1972): 5–6Google Scholar.

40. Herbst and Materna, “20 Jahre Museum für Deutsche Geschichte,” 11.

41. Herbst, Wolfgang, “Geschichtsmuseum und sozialistische Gesellschaft,” Beiträge und Mitteilungen: Protokoll des wissenschaftlichen Kolloquiums am 19./20. Januar 1972 (Berlin, 1972), 15Google Scholar.

42. Haun, Horst, “Die Karl-Marx-Ausstellung 1953 des Museums für Deutsche Geschichte,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 31, no. 5 (1983): 420Google Scholar.

43. Museum für Deutsche Geschichte, Deutsche Stadt im Mittelalter, (Berlin, 1956)Google Scholar.

44. Museum für Deutsche Geschichte, Deutschland von 1789–1871, (Berlin, 1962)Google Scholar. This display was later incorporated into the permanent exhibit and did not yet reflect the Abgrenzung which became characteristic of SED policy following the Cold War's escalation during the 1960s.

45. Ibid.

46. Ibid.

47. During their discussion of the temporary exhibits in the MfDG up until 1969, Wernicke and Herbst provide a list of the exhibits staged during this period. All of the exhibits up until 1966 focus on Germany and Germans, with the socialist movements in the East left largely in the sidelines. Herbst, and Wernicke, , 1967, 29–31Google Scholar. The same list is confirmed by Uhlig, Judith, “Berichte und Bemerkungen: 20 Jahre Museum für Deutsche Geschichte,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 20, no. 7 (1972): 873–75Google Scholar.

48. Herbst, “Geschichtsmuseum und sozialistische Gesellschaft,” 14. Throughout his presentation at the colloquium in honor of the MfDG's 20th anniversary, Herbst stressed the need to ground the evolution of German history in the “welthistorischen Prozess” and argued that without a dominant international perspective a true Marxist-Leninist history could not be attained. This was echoed by many other presentations during the colloquium, indicating the extent of consensus acheived following the 8th Party Congress. Rudolf Förster, for example, in his discussion of regional museums, returns to Herbst's call for an international grounding, and Karl-Heinz Mahlert not only repeat Herbst's demands but quotes directly from the 8th Party Congress proceedings when stating that “der erste deutsche Arbeiter-und-Bauern-Staat ist nicht nur das gesetzmässige Ergebnis des mehr als hundertzwanzigjährigen Kampfes der revolutionären deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, sondern zugleich auch ‘Resultat und…aktiver Mitgestalter des revolutionären Weltprozesses, der unter Führung der internationalen Arbeiterklasse und der internationalen kommunistischen Bewegung gesetzmässig zum Sozialismus und Kommunismus führt.” See Förster, “Überlegungen zur Arbeit regionaler Geschichtsmuseen,” and Mahlert, “Die Verwirklichung der Einheit von Geschichtswissenschaft und Geschichtsmuseum am Beispiel der Vorbereitung einer ständigen Ausstellung am Museum für Deutsche Geschichte,” in Beiträge und Mitteilungen: Protokoll des wissenschaftlichen Kolloquiums am 19./20. Januar 1972, 80–86, 96–102. That these attitudes remain consistent into the 1980s is made clear by reports in later colloquiums. See for example: Schirmer, Gregor, “Zum 25. Jahrestag des Museums für Deutsche Geschichte,” Beiträge und Mitteilungen, Museum für Deutsche Geschichte 4 (1977): 11–19Google Scholar; the international colloquium covered in Beiträge und Mitteilungen, Museum für Deutsche Geschichte, 8 (1982)Google Scholar; Wernicke, Kurt, “Einige Leitgedanken zur Neufassung der ständigen musealen Ausstellung ‘Sozialistisches Vaterland DDR,’” Beiträge und Mitteilungen, Museum für Deutsche Geschichte 11 (1985): 17–22Google Scholar. For further discussion of the 8th Party Congress's impact on history in the GDR see Berthold, Werner, “Forschungen zu Theorie, Methodologie und Geschichte der Geschichtswissenschaft,” Historische Forschungen in der DDR, 1970–1980 (Berlin, 1980): 538–93Google Scholar.

49. Museum für Deutsche Geschichte, Die Gewalt soll gegeben werden dem gemeinen Volk: zum 450. Jahrestag des Deutschen Bauernkrieges. Ausstellung des Museums für Deutsche Geschichte (Berlin, 1975)Google Scholar. It should be noted that even this exhibit had a strong international tone. Vera-Gisela Ewald's discussion of this exhibit, for example, stressed that this was not only an important date in German history, but also in the history of the “internationalen Arbeiterbewegung.” See Ewald, Vera-Gisela, “Sozialismus und geschichtliches Erbe. Die Aufgaben des Museumswesens in der DDR,” Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift: Gesellschafts und Sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe 28 (1979): 313Google Scholar.

50. Sheehan, “National History,” 166; Krisch The German Democratic Republic, 83–87, Jarausch, Zwischen, 16Google Scholar.

51. Museum für Deutsche Geschichte, Fü Frieden, Demokratie und Sozialisms: Polen 1939–1945. Ausstellung im Museum für Deutsche Geschichte (Berlin, 1976)Google Scholar.

52. Schirmer, Georg, “Zum 25. Jahrestag des Museums für Deutsche Geschichte,” Beiträge und Mitteilungen des Museums für Deutsche Geschichte 4 (1977): 13Google Scholar.

53. Museum für Deutsche Geschichte, Ausstellung: Deutsche Geschichte 500–1789 (Berlin, 1980)Google Scholar.

54. Museum für Deutsche Geschichte, Austellung: Deutsche Geschichte 1917–1945 (Berlin, 1981)Google Scholar.

55. Museum für Deutsche Geschichte, Deutsche Geschichte 1789–1917 (Berlin, 1982)Google Scholar.

56. The 1962 exhibit covered the years 1789–1871, while the 1982 exhibit began in 1789 and ended in 1917.

57. Ibid., 62.

58. This shift in emphasis from a need for a united Germany to a desire for an international community is reflected in the discourse surrounding the museum as well. In his article “25 Jahre Museum für Deutsche Geschichte,” for example, Peter Möbius quotes from Otto Grotewohl's speech during the MfDG founding, but leaves out any mention of German unity or the fight over the German past. Similar examples abound.

59. Historians and museologists examining museums in the United States and Europe have identified this as a consistent and perhaps unavoidable element in museum exhibits. See for example Sherman, Daniel J., Worthy Monuments: Art Museums and the Politics of Culture in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; the two excellent collections of essays edited by Karp, Ivan, Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington, 1991)Google Scholar; and Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture (Washington, 1992)Google Scholar; the articles by Wallace, Michael, “Visiting the Past: History Museums in the United States,” Radical History Review 25 (1981): 63–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Coombes, Annie E., “Museums and the Formation of National and Cultural Identities,” The Oxford Art Journal 11, no. 2 (1988): 57–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Haraway, Donna, “Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York City, 1908–1936,” Social Text 11 (1984–1985): 20–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the British anthologies by Kavanagh, Gaynor, ed. Museum Languages: Objects and Texts (Leicester, 1991)Google Scholar; and Lumley, Robert, ed. The Museum Time Machine: Putting Cultures on Display (London, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60. See Nothnagle for the extent to which myth was employed in East Germany. For consideration of the role of historical narratives in fashioning German national identity in the West, we need only turn to the recent debates over national museums in the BRD or the Historikerstreit. See for example Maier, Unmasterable.

61. The most influential of these exhibitions for initiating discussion for a German history museum was “Preussen—Versuch einer Bilanz,” held in Berlin in 1981. This display followed a series of successful exhibits during the previous five years, such as “Wittelsbach und Bayern in 1980,” and “Tendenzen der zwanziger Jahre,” which was also held in Berlin in 1977. Suggestions for creating a German history museum were put forward during the late 1970s by Wolf Jobst Siedler, Walter Scheel, and others, but according to Christoph Stölzl these suggestions began to be seriously considered following the Prussian exhibit. See Stölzl, ChristophDas Deutsche Historische Museum: Ideen—Kontroversen—Perspectiven (Frankfurt, 1988)Google Scholar. The increased interest in history among West Germans in the 1980s was pronounced by the initial commission of historians organized to draft a proposal for the Deutsche Historisches Museum, which is reprinted in Stölzl, 61–66; similar points of view are found throughout the volume in the various testimonies. The MfDG's role in the desire among many West Germans to create a museum which would serve as a counterpart or a corrective to the history found in the Zeughaus is made clear in this volume as well. The MfDG appears in both his introduction as a problem which required a response and in many of the articles included in his book.

62. Maier, Unmasterable, 128Google Scholar. Stölzl's volume contains many German historians' stances at that time. Critical evaluations of the museum controversy have been folded into many American and English historians' assessments of the Historikerstreit, such as in Maier Unmasterable, or Heuser, Beatrice, “Museums, Identity and Warring Historians—Observations on History in Germany,” The Historical Journal 33, no. 2 (1990): 417–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For observations at the time see Eley, Geoff, “Nazism, Politics and Public Memory: Thoughts on the West German Historikerstreit 1986–1987,” Past and Present 121, no. 1 (1988): 171CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Nolan, Mary, “The Historikerstreit and Social History,” New German Critique 44 (Spring, 1988): 51Google Scholar.

63. Heuser claimed in her evaluation of the museum controversy that Germans as a nation are “obsessed with self-examination,” and argued that this obsession is “not confined to the historians who drafted the plans for the museum, but is…essentially shared (minus the actual word identity) by historians who…have little liking for the planned museum or its proponents.” 422–23.

64. Heuser, “Museums,” 425.

65. DrHinz, Hans-Martin, letter to the author, 18 October, 1993Google Scholar. Vesper, Karlen, “Der grosse Coup Unter den Linden–Museum verschenkt,” Neues Deutschland, 26 September, 1990Google Scholar.

66. Münter, Christian, “Museum für Deutsche Geschichte legt seine alten Scheuklappen ab,” Der Morgen, no. 224, 25 September, 1990Google Scholar. For further information on the projected designs for the DHM and the plans that were abandonded in favor of the Zeughaus see Rossi, Aldo, Deutsches Historisches Museum, 1989 (Berlin, 1989)Google Scholar; and Williams, Stephanie, “The Future German Historical Museum in Berlin,” Apollo 128 (Dec. 1988): 413–16Google Scholar.

67. This exhibit toured the United States in 1993, and was both illustrated and “explained” in Deutsches Historisches Museum Magazin 3, no. 7 (Spring 1993)Google Scholar.

68. Although there is a brief mention of West German propaganda, no examples of this are provided which would put the GDR posters into context. The viewer is told that in Western propaganda the “darkest visions of popular anti-bolshevism were revived” and that the Communist Party was quickly banned, but the viewer is also reassured that “fears of the spread of Communism in West Germany were largely unfounded,” because “economic success in the Federal Republic had in any case created a broad acceptance of the West German democratic model,” and that “a catalog from a West German department store was capable of generating more unrest in the GDR than political tracts on West German democracy could ever do.” Consequently, the DHM saw no reason to provide examples of West German propaganda produced at that time. Ibid., 3–4. English in the original.

69. Ibid., 6–7.

70. Ibid., 10.