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Art

Looking east: the photographer Sibylle Bergemann

6 Mar 2014 by Michael Geithner
Since the founding of the DDR, the state has exerted influence on its artists and cultural workers. One important photographer who felt the effects of this state control on several occasions was Sibylle Bergemann, who nevertheless managed to find her own artistic path, especially in the DDR, and to go beyond all boundaries. Her photographs tell stories, stories of people from East Berlin, from their everyday lives, deep and melancholic, genuine and sometimes critical, but always unadulterated and beautiful – the story of a city.
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Review

“Wandel im Flug. Berlin’s transformation after 1989”

27 Feb 2014 by Admin
I present every two weeks an English book out of our library and a few times picture books with photos of the divided Berlin were subjects of my book presentation. But it is also interesting to know, what happened actually with East and West Berlin after the Fall of the Wall? What changed in the city? What happened with the buildings of the GDR government etc.? 
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Press

Interview with Paula Kirby on “The View East”

20 Feb 2014 by Admin
Paula Kirby, a writer who lived and worked in Dresden, is one of the rare guest authors in the blog of the DDR Museum. She experienced such an interesting story, that our spokeswoman Melanie Alperstaedt asked her in 2011 to write in our blog about it.
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Review

„The Berlin Wall Book“

13 Feb 2014 by Admin
“Nothing is so bad that it does not also bear within it the seed of something good.” (Chinese saying). This saying Hermann Waldenburg prefaces his introducing essay for “The Berlin Wall Book”. And he tries to confirm this saying with his photos of the paintings on the Berlin Wall. He collected these photos and brought them together in one little book with a lot of pictures which was published 2012 by the Nicolai Verlag.
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Competition

2. Instagram photo competition

6 Feb 2014 by Michael Geithner
We call again all hobby and mobile phone photographers to overheat their cameras and take some nice photos around the GDR!
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Review

“DDR in Color”

30 Jan 2014 by Admin
When I thought about photographs of the former GDR I often had the picture in mind, that these are black and white, or better: grey. This view is obviously a fallacy because of course you can find color photos of the GDR, too.  A book which calls this into my consciousness is the book “DDR in Color”, in 2013 published in the Berlin Story Verlag and edited by Klaus Morgenstern and the ddrbildarchiv.de.
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Happy cooking!

Has restaurant manager a favorite dish?

23 Jan 2014 by Janine Henschel
Once in a month I ask my colleagues, which is their favorite dish from the Domklause. But, how is it, when you work in the Domklause? Do you have one favorite on the menu? These questions our restaurant manager Kim Stender will answer.
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Memorial

The Berlin Wall Trail (Berliner Mauerweg)

16 Jan 2014 by Admin
Once in a month we present you places, which deal with commemorating and remembering the GDR. These places were yet above all institutions like museums or memorials, which emphasize several themes of the GDR past. This time we want to present you a place of remembrance of a special kind: the Berlin Wall Trail.
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Review

“Scenes and Traces of a Fall. The Berlin Wall in the Eye of the Photographer”

9 Jan 2014 by Admin
In 2009, 20 years after the fall of the wall, the foundation Brandenburger Tor conceived an exhibition with the title “Scenes and Traces of a Fall. The Berlin Wall in the Eye of the Photographer”. Attendant to that exhibition the foundation published a catalogue, which is still worth seeing even if the exhibition can’t longer be seen. Because of that I put forward this catalogue here.
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Exhibition

The wall unit “Carat” in the DDR Museum

2 Jan 2014 by Dr. Stefan Wolle
When archeologists in a thousand years will find remains of a wall unit they can assign the find immediately. Maybe they will refer to the wall unit culture, how we refer to the Funnel Beaker Culture or the Corded Ware, of which we don’t know more than the earthenware.
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Exhibition

Simson KR 51/1 “Schwalbe” (“Swallow”)

17 Dec 2013 by Sören Marotz
Now he is finally here, our Simson KR (KleinRoller=small scooter) 51/1 “Schwalbe” (“Swallow”), Year 1979. Actually he is a “she”: the “Schwalbe” (“Swallow”), because nobody used the designation Simson KR 51/1. For a long time she stands with a structurally identical sister in our museum depot in order to make her way in the exhibition in the Christmas season.
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GDR History

The soldier's locker in the exhibition

13 Dec 2013
In this article, the academic director of the DDR Museum, Dr Stefan Wolle, recalls his time in the National People’s Army, particularly his sergeant major, whom he still thinks of when sorting through his books.
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Happy cooking!

Venison stew

12 Dec 2013 by Janine Henschel
This recipe is a specialty of Saxony. Above all in the southern part of the GDR there were a lot of forests and because of that there were lots of game meat.
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Review

„The new sufferings of young W. and other stories from the German Democratic Republic”

5 Dec 2013 by Admin
Today I want to present you a slightly different book as I presented the last times. It isn’t a historical book about the GDR, but it is a collection of stories written by authors of the GDR.
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Collection

The Trabant car key

29 Nov 2013 by Sören Marotz
It just came back as a loan from the Deutsche Hygiene Museum: our Trabant car key. There it was an exhibit of the special exhibition “Reichtum – Mehr als genug”, which was shown in Dresden from the 6th of July till the 10th of November 2013.
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Review

Berlin – A City Divided

19 Nov 2013 by Admin
It is not essential that history or historical books always are dull. It is also possible to write illustratively about history. A good example for this is the book “Berlin – A City Divided” by Susanne Buddenberg and Thomas Henseler.
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Restaurant

Offers for school classes in the Domklause

14 Nov 2013 by Janine Henschel
Often the budget for class outings is low, because of that we developed some time ago special group offers for the DDR-Restaurant Domklause, which is directly beside the museum.
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Review

„Experienced Building, East Berlin 1959 – 1989“

5 Nov 2013 by Admin
We entrust the book „Experienced Building, East Berlin 1959 – 1989“ toall interested people in architecture and in the architectural (re-)design of East Berlin in the years 1959 till 1989. The special feature: All texts and thecaptions are printed in four languages, German, English, Russian and French.
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Team

The favorite objects of Janine Henschel

31 Oct 2013 by Melanie Alperstaedt
The question of Ms. Henschels’ favorite object leaded to a surprisinganswer. I expected one of the big highlights of our exhibition: Maybe the fog screen, the Journal of hunting or one of the interactive games. But no, the answer was easier and because of that much more interesting.
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Review

"East German Design 1949-1989"

22 Oct 2013 by Admin
In the supermarkets in Germany today you can find some products which look a little bit “retro”, a little bit out of another time. Maybe you’ve seen the Club Cola, the Vita Cola or the Kathi cake mix. These are products which were produced in the former GDR and which were by 1991 returning to the shop shelfs in Germany.
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Online Tickets