New National Museums

What secret agenda lies behind the new national museums?

These questions will be addressed at a symposium in March in Berlin. The title of the conference is longer than the three days the conference is expected to last: "The Memory of Nations? New National Historical and Cultural Museums: Conceptions, Realizations and Expectations." The conference appropriately takes place at the 300-year old baroque armoury in Berlin, where the new German Historical Museum opened last summer.

This museum is the result of almost two decades of hard work. The Museum started from scratch. They not only had to secure a location, but actually had to begin with collecting the artefacts required for a proper museum and not just an educational experience centre.

The result of course is overwhelming, which the many visitors verify. More than 500.000 -  - have walked through the impressive exhibitions since last summer and the number seems to continue to increase.

Sober, self-critical and self-aware
Angels tread lightly when it comes to German History. First of all national history was the invention of the Germans, whose historians developed the whole idea of a scientific historical enquiry. Later, during the Prussian and later the Nazi era, history was consistently abused in order to further the grandiose imperial dreams of the German nation. And finally post world war historians have laboured to find a way of writing history on the one hand recognizing and remembering the sufferings of the Germans while at the same time avoiding enrolment as apologists for the horrendous war crimes. The name of this game is consistently balancing between the need to tell this story and at the same time present the Germans with the possibility of some remembrance not dulled by pain.

New German Historical Museum dares
The new German Historical Museum located in Berlin has definitely succeeded in fulfilling this ambition. One of the reasons is that the museum is such a rich experience. It is simply not possible to wander through it all in one morning. Having spent several hours in the permanent collection we had to seek refuge in the café, as it isn't simply possible to digest the whole story. The exhibition is full of variety, challenges and questions, rather than presenting the viewer with a complete package or a holistic experience.

In accordance with this Hans-Martin Hinz from the German Historical Museum has recently claimed that the permanent exhibition has "the character of a Handbook to history using original materials from the past". Thus a historical overview is the dominant aim, quite simply because a handbook is the same as a reference book. There are no easy explanations, be they economic, social, psychological or (heaven forbid) racial. But there is an amassment of artefacts shown in a series of tableau interchanging with more expository and explanatory sideshows.

This is of course satisfying because we need to respect German culture and German history as so much more than a simplified narrative of an empire followed by its decline and fall. The exhibition gives the viewer anything but a simplified version of what Germany was all about, where it went and where it is going.

The future
This seems to be an emerging global trend among museums currently being renovated. No easy explanations, but rather lots of small side stories presenting us with the poly-cultural diversity and reality of our ancestors.

How to go about this is discussed at the conference in Berlin next month.

Related information
Deutsches Historische Museum, German History in Images and Testimonials
Statement on the New National Museums, see ICOM's newsletter (pdf)
Program of the symposium taking place 14-16 March, 2007, "The Memory of Nations?" (pdf)