18 Museums to explore in Berlin
Capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Berlin is a world city of culture, politics, media and sciences, and its economy is based on high-tech firms and the service sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations and convention venues.
Art gallery showing a collection of Neoclassical, Romantic, Biedermeier, Impressionist and early Modernist artwork. Among the most important exhibits are Friedrich's Der Mönch am Meer (The Monk by the Sea), von Menzel's Eisenwalzwerk (The Iron Rolling Mill) and sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow's Prinzessinnengruppe, a double statue of princesses Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Frederica of Prussia. The Alte Nationalgalerie houses one of the largest collections of 19th-century sculptures and
It houses the antiquities collection of the Berlin State Museums, showcasing the art and culture of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans. It was the first museum and the nucleus of the Museum Island, built between 1823 and 1830.
Tells the personal life story of Anne Frank and connects it to the world she lived in. The exhibition here focuses on the diary and the story of the life of Anne Frank.
Housed inside a 6,500-square-metre WWII bunker, the museum recreates the history of Berlin and some of the most infamous events in German history. The exhibition showcases the sequence of events leading up to Hitler's suicide in 1945, and it has a reconstruction of Hitler’s personal study.
Home for a collection of sculptures, Byzantine art, and coins and medals. Houses one of the largest coin collections in the world, ranging from 7th century BC to present day.
Name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War (1947–1991). It is a symbol of the Cold War, representing the separation of East and West.
Depicts life in the former East Germany(Deutsche Demokratische Republik or DDR) in a hands-on way. Visitors can try DDR clothes, change TV channels, use an original typewriter or experience sense of being under surveillance by a covert listening device. The exhibition has three themed areas: “Public Life”; “State and Ideology” and “Life in a Tower Block”. Each of them is presented under a critical light: the positives as well as the negatives sides of the DDR.
Museum where the main selection of paintings belonging to the Berlin State Museums is displayed. It holds one of the world's leading collections of European paintings from the 13th to the 18th centuries.
Devoted to 2,000 years of German history, focusing on the understanding of the shared history of Germans and Europeans. The exhibits are arranged chronologically- from the early-Middle Ages to the present day.
Exhibits a large collection of historical technical artifacts. The museum's main emphasis originally was on rail transport, but today it also features exhibits of various sorts of industrial technology including maritime and aviation exhibition halls.
An old railway terminus converted into a contemporary art museum. Part of Berlin National Gallery.
Largest Jewish museum in Europe, one of Germany's most frequented museums. The museum gives a lot of importance to the German-Jewish history.
Also known as the Holocaust Memorial, it is a memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Consists of a 19,000-square-metre site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. The slabs are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason.
Exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. The museum houses more than 30 million zoological, paleontological, and mineralogical specimens. It is famous for two exhibits: the largest mounted dinosaur in the world (a Giraffatitan skeleton), and a well-preserved specimen of the earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx.
A large museum housing Egyptian and Prehistory and Early History collections. The artifacts include the iconic bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti.
One of the most visited art museums in Germany housing large monumental buildings such as the Pergamon Altar, Ishtar Gate of Babylon, the Market Gate of Miletus etc..
Research and memorial centre showcasing the political system of the former East Germany. It is located in the former headquarters of the Stasi(Ministry for State Security), the official state security service of the East Germany. The centrepiece of the exhibition is the office and working quarters of the former head of the Stasi – Erich Mielke.
Located on the site where the principal instruments of Nazi persecution and terror were occured between 1933 and 1945: the headquarters of the Gestapo, the high command and security service of the SS, and from 1939 the Reich Security Main Office. The museum shed lights about these institutions and the crimes that were organised there. Photographs and documents illustrate the history from the time the Nazis took power until the end of the war.
