Blog :: DDR Museum

1 Nov 2018 by Admin

Every month, we are showing one very special piece from our collection. Our object of the month November 2018 is a suitcase decorated with a total of 61 stickers from different travel destinations. What might be the story its telling?

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Valuable additions to the collection of the DDR Museum

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26 Apr 2017 by Admin

The collection of a museum is never truly complete. In the following text we will introduce some objects which have been recently added to the collection of the DDR Museum.

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Shopping in the DDR: Konsum

30 Nov 2016 by Admin

In order to satisfy their daily consumer needs, the citizens of the DDR / Soviet occupation zone had a number of possibilities to do their shopping. Already in December of 1945, a consumer cooperative with the simple name of “Konsum” was established. Only three years later, almost 300 independent consumer cooperatives existed in different cities.

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Collecting with a system: How do objects get into a collection?

Collection

26 Oct 2016 by Admin

A museum has five main tasks: Teaching/communicating, Exhibiting, Researching, Collecting and Preserving. At the DDR Museum, the last two tasks are taken care of by the collection department. Collecting therefore also means to reasonably enlarge the inventory and to add new objects to the museum's collection. The following blog text will tell you more about how this exactly works.

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Big objects in front of the lens

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15 Jun 2016 by Admin

The collection department of the DDR Museum now owns a modern set for photographing big objects.

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The magazine "Sputnik" as a paper-based ambassador of the USSR

8 Jun 2016 by Admin

The Soviet magazine "Sputnik" (Russian for companion) has been published by the state-owned news agency "Nowosti" since January 1967. It was designed as a digest of the Soviet press and was not only adressed to Russians but also to readers from other socialist and western foreign countries.

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"Original Wolfen" magnetic tape and film production in the GDR

18 May 2016 by Admin

Every technology enthusiast in the GDR was well accustomed with the products of the company ORWO. No wonder: The company used to have the monopoly on the production of chemical data mediums in the GDR. The history of the production site, Wolfen, however, is only familiar to few.

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Having an eye on finances: 8 books of household accounts from a family in Dresden

Collection

11 May 2016 by Admin

Nowadays there's an app for that. In the GDR, on the other hand, people kept an eye on their receipts and expenditures with the help of a meticulously kept book of household accounts. It was a proper housewife's duty to keep track of what amount of money was spent for what and when. The DDR Museum was recently donated a total of 8 books of household accounts from a family from Dresden, starting on January 1st in 1963 and ending on January 3rd in 1993. Learn more about these highly interesting historical documents in the following text!

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The Thirst Quencher for work at high temperatures: Contratherm – Heat Drink

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20 Apr 2016 by Admin

The collection of the DDR Museum is documenting everyday life in the GDR and therefore consists of different objects belonging to all sorts of topics. Every day, our colleagues at the collection department are dealing with objects and their interesting stories and sometimes unusual original purposes. One of them is the sealed glass bottle “Contratherm - Heat Drink”, containing a bright pink liquid. Get to know the interesting background story in the following text!

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Reaching to the stars with the model kit “Vostok-1”

Topic DDR

13 Apr 2016 by Dr. Stefan Wolle

On April 12 in 1961 at 7:07am CET, Juri Gagarin was the first human being to fly into space with the “Vostok-1”, where he orbited the earth within 108 minutes. This event represented a high success for all Eastern bloc countries which were in constant competition with the United States of America. Gagarin started in the Soviet place of Kosmodrom Baikonur, the biggest Soviet space mission launch center in southern Kasachstan.

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Globetrotters back home – Objects are returning into our collection

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17 Feb 2016 by Admin

In October 2015, the DDR Museum had the chance to support the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History in Seoul with a special exhibition by lending a number of objects. The exhibit with the title “Implications of German Reunification for Korean Unification” was on display in three rooms and was greeted with great interest by the Korean visitors.

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Foreign aid by the GDR in Africa

20 Jan 2016 by Admin

Even though the GDR had quite a number of economic problems itself, the small country nevertheless offered foreign aid to many places around the world since the 1960s, which within the socialist language use, however, was referred to as „Anti-imperialistic solidarity“.

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Erich Honecker – Rise and Fall of the GDR Head of State

Topic DDR

4 Nov 2015 by Admin

On October 29th in 1976, exactly 39 years ago, Erich Honecker was elected Chairman of the Privy Council by the People's Chamber. At that moment he had been holding all of the important positions in the GDR such as „General Secretary of the Central Committee of the SED“, „Chairman of the National Defense Council“ as well as „Chairman of the State Council in the GDR“ in personal union since 1976. Domestically, Honecker was at the peak of his power. But how did the little „Saarlander“ get into those influential positions? To answer this question, a look into history is necessary at first.

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From subject to museum object – how an item becomes part of the collection

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28 Oct 2015 by Admin

One of the core tasks of a museum is the care and enlargement of its collection along a specific collection concept. At the DDR Museum this happens to a large part by accepting donations from the public. Visitors can either deliver their donations directly at the entrance area of our museum or contact one of the members of the collection department. This procedure enables our staff to decide whether the specific object fits the collection concept and will represent a meaningful addition to the collection.

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The Berlin TV Tower

14 Oct 2015 by Admin

On October 3rd in 1969, the Berlin TV Tower was ceremonially inaugurated in Berlin Mitte at the Alexanderplatz in the presence of Walter Ulbricht and other high-rank politicians of the SED party. At the same time the television broadcaster Deutscher Fernsehfunk started its emission and the era of color television in the GDR had begun. Prior to the construction there were constant internal discussions about the exact place and appearance of the tower. After agreement, the then-president of the Deutsche Bauakademie (German Construction Academy) Gerhard Kosel was instructed by the SED leadership with the overall instruction of the project.

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Progress-Filmprogramm - little booklets for big movies

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7 Oct 2015 by Admin

The film distribution company Progress, founded in 1950, had a monopoly in the GDR and brought all movies into the movie theaters, regardless of the fact whether they were domestic or international productions.

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The West in the boob tube

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16 Sep 2015 by Admin

The collection of the DDR Museum has grown again recently. The object concerned is a self-made converter for the reception of the TV channels ARD and ZDF – programs from West Germany and therefore not officially forbidden for GDR citizens, but nevertheless programs only minimally tolerated by the government.

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East-West relationships between minimum exchange and welcome money

8 Sep 2015 by Admin

Regarding the inner-German tourist travel with all its aspects, one will inevitably come across the East-German „minimum exchange“ and the West-German „welcome money“. But what do these terms exactly mean and what were their consequences for the people?

Behind the scenes

And Action – Camera rolling! Film shooting at the museum depot

Museum news

29 Jul 2015 by Admin

How revealing was the German Democratic Republic? Were East-Germans more advanced in arithmetics than people living in Western Germany? Even after a visit to a museum the one or other question might be left unanswered and current political developments and events might provoke interesting discussions as well.

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Summer Camp in the GDR

22 Jul 2015 by Admin

Holiday time is summer camp time! This slogan was true for many children who grew up in the German Democratic Republic. And, truly, the small republic established a great number of summer camps. The youth getaways were divided into pioneer's camps („Pionierferienlager“) and company camps („Betriebsferienlager“) and were spread all over the country. In the year 1989 alone there were 49 pioneer's camps within the GDR, as well as hundreds of additional company camps.

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