iDDR MuseumMitte
A Country in a Container – The Disposal of East German State Symbols
What became of the GDR's flags, emblems and medals after 1990: dumped in containers, sold at flea markets, and still shaping how Germany remembers.
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In June 1990, East Germany's first freely elected parliament voted to take the hammer, compass and wreath of ears off the Palace of the Republic. One of the building's architects, Dieter Bankert, kept a single grain from that wreath as a memento, and it is here.
The show starts from the bulky-waste containers of 1990, where emblems, Thälmann busts and border-troop signs ended up. You follow the objects to flea markets, where medals sold for a few Deutschmarks, then into the museum's collection, alongside the fights over street names and monuments. At home, people decided for themselves whether the Marx bust stayed on the wall unit. One survivor is at the traffic lights: the green right-turn arrow, one of the few East German rules unified Germany kept.
It is a small display inside the permanent exhibition, so there is no separate ticket: it comes with museum admission. The museum is open daily until 9pm, and the show closes on 15 November.
Look for
The grain from the Palace of the Republic
A single grain from the wreath of ears on the state coat of arms, saved by architect Dieter Bankert when the emblem came off the façade.
The border troops' officer cap
A regulation NVA cap whose GDR emblem has been swapped for a plain black, red and gold cockade, by an order of 20 July 1990.
Flags with a hole in the middle
GDR flags with the coat of arms cut out, leaving the black, red and gold that people carried at demonstrations after 9 November 1989.
The Leninallee street sign
A sign from the East Berlin street that went back to being Landsberger Allee in the wave of renamings after 1990.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Nerding Out
Also at DDR Museum
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
8
- A Country in a Container – The Disposal of East German State SymbolsCourtesy of DDR Museum
- Being Related: Shared Language, Shared Knowledge?© Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR); Foto: Hammanson Sule
- Friends for the Arts of East Asia in BerlinCourtesy of Humboldt Forum
- DDR MuseumAndreas Praefcke / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
- Humboldt ForumMike Peel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Altes MuseumJean-Pierre Dalbéra / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Alte NationalgalerieManfred Brückels / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
- Neues MuseumFred Romero / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0