Blog :: DDR Museum

28 Jan 2015 by Michael Geithner

As Lothar Schubert in December 1984 wrote the rules of a new game, he didn’t guess yet, that his work would be published first 30 years later. Now everybody can play it on his smartphone or in the DDR Museum.

GDR History

A dream ship in the service of the FDGB – die MS »Völkerfreundschaft«

Topic DDR

22 Jan 2015

The GDR cruise ship »Völkerfreundschaft« represented East German holidaymakers' dreams from 1960 to 1985. For the majority of the population, however, the GDR's dream ship remained just that – a dream.

Review

“Beyond the Wall. Art and Artifacts from the GDR”

Reviews

14 Jan 2015 by Admin

It’s once again time to present you here an English book about the GDR. Today it’s a very special one. Not only the content but also the size and the layout are something special. It is the biggest book out of our library and the one with the most pictures. And, I think, it’s one of the most expensive ones, too. On 904 pages you can see in this book 2500 artifacts, design pieces and everyday objects from the East German Collection of the “Wende Museum” in Los Angeles.

Retrospect

The year 2014

Museum news

7 Jan 2015 by Melanie Alperstaedt

My first working day started with good news: The DDR Museum, and so all of us, beat the attendance record of 2013! 10.000 more people were in the exhibition, but, the year was beyond that really eventfully!

History

Five suprising facts

Topic DDR

19 Dec 2014 by Admin

In this article we tell you five suprising facts about the end of the German Democratic Republic.

Design

The Staßfurter suitcase television K 67

DDR-Design

29 Oct 2014 by Admin

Transistorisation! Magic Word of the 60s in the GDR. Also fixed in the radio and television industry of Central Germany under the state scheme.

Music

The asylum of Tamara in paradise – the rock group Silly

DDR music

18 Sep 2014 by Sören Marotz

Ok, Silly had ever since the middle of the 1980ies arrived in the upper league of the GDR rock music with the Amiga album “Bataillon d’Amour” (1986), but there they weren’t the only ones. Unique though was their sound, which differentiated for the first time from the mainstream in the GDR. The drawers were too small for them. At least since Werner Karma assumed the overall control, the writing, it was clear, that here wouldn’t sung about dying swans, but rather the trouble’s brewing of dying cities, how he framed it.

From the collection

Advertising in the GDR

Topic DDR

11 Sep 2014

From Minol-Pirol and Fewa-Johanna to Korbine-Früchtchen: Despite their comparatively short »period of use«, almost everyone who lived in the GDR knows them. With the help of numerous posters, figures and displays from the DDR Museum’s collection, we give an overview of the history of advertising in the GDR.

Exhibition

The game „Twilight Struggle“

Museum news

4 Sep 2014 by Michael Geithner

The Cold War functioned yet as a model for numerous games, which addressed the struggle of East and West and the danger in the form of the atomic bomb. Because of that we present two games with the same title, one of them you can find in the DDR Museum.

Design

„Swords to Ploughshares“

DDR-Design

21 Aug 2014 by Admin

When sixtynine years ago the pain of the humanity under the Second World War had an end, in Germany, whose Nazi rulers had caused the catastrophe, the people spoke from the year 1945 as the “Zero Hour”. Thus, as if you could begin to furnish the bombed out flat in the house Europe now from scratch, totally new and totally amicably as a refuge of peace. Just no look back.

Collection

Records of AMIGA and LITERA

Collection

24 Jul 2014 by Admin

Fondly arranged and neatly registered in the index the colorful covers of the GDR-records of a record-bag laugh against us. But the diversity of the gaudily jackets deceive; each of them comes from the pressing plant "VEB Deutsche Schallplatten Berlin”, the single record company of the GDR.

For children

„A generation divided. German children and the Berlin Wall“

Reviews

3 Jul 2014 by Admin

A real interesting and also profound book I found this week in our library and I don’t want to deprive you of. It’s not a book, which would entertain you in a funny way, but it is a book, which will impress you.

Design

The P 605

DDR-Design

22 May 2014 by Admin

The P 605 is a shapely and easy to service pendant lamp. It is made of lacquered aluminum and became one of the true classics of East German Design. Exactly 50 years ago, it came to the GDR market. A good reason to tell you more about it!

Art

In front of the lens of Gundula Schulze Eldowy

Topic DDR

3 Apr 2014 by Admin

When one of the most important East German photographers, Gundula Schulze Endowy, looks through the lens of her camera, she looks contemporaneous not only in the life of her counterpart, but also seemingly in his soul. She sensitively shows the life in the GDR, how it was, unvarnished and beautiful at the same time, the life and the people in all its facets.

Art

Looking east: the photographer Sibylle Bergemann

Topic DDR

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.

Review

“DDR in Color”

Reviews

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.

Memorial

The Berlin Wall Trail (Berliner Mauerweg)

Topic DDR

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.

Exhibition

Simson KR 51/1 “Schwalbe” (“Swallow”)

Museum news

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.

GDR History

The soldier's locker in the exhibition

Topic DDR

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.

Happy cooking!

Venison stew

DDR recipes

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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