iDeutsches Historisches MuseumMitte
Nature and German History. Faith – Biology – Power
Eight centuries of how Germans defined and politicised 'nature', from medieval faith through Nazi ideas of natural law to 20th-century environmental and anti-nuclear movements.
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A copy of a miniature from around 1175 shows Hildegard of Bingen at her wax tablets, five red flames touching her forehead. Five rooms on, you're watching 1966 TV footage of a beluga whale that swam up the polluted Rhine.
Between them, 800 years of German ideas about nature are told in 24 case studies and about 250 objects: a Fugger peacock, a slice of oak from the Tiergarten, a stuffed she-wolf standing for the Thirty Years' War. Die Biene Maja turns up as a 1918 novel, before she was the cartoon on your childhood TV. The Nazi years hinge on 1935, when the Nuremberg Laws and the Reich Conservation Act were passed.
Monopol called it dense and well told, and H-Soz-Kult "highly worth seeing", though thin on East German environmentalism. Tagesspiegel's critic found the objects laid out too conventionally. It's on the first floor of the Pei building, €7 (€3.50 reduced, under-18s free), with group-free quiet hours on Tuesdays 4 to 6 pm and Saturdays 10 am to noon.
Look for
Hildegard's flames
Look for the copy of the c. 1175 miniature of Hildegard of Bingen writing on wax tablets while five red flames of inspiration touch her forehead.
The Fugger peacock
An Indian peacock with a shimmering blue neck stands for the wealth of the Augsburg Fugger family and their gardens.
The Behaim globe
A copy of Martin Behaim's 1492 globe, painted on wood with brass and iron fittings, shows a world with no America on it yet.
The Tiergarten oak
A cross-section of an oak that stood in Berlin's Tiergarten for 150 years, near a painting of Germania crowned with oak leaves.
The Rhine beluga
TV footage from 1966 follows a beluga whale that strayed up the Rhine, a river polluted enough to harm it.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want interactives rather than display cases: Tagesspiegel found the touch and smell stations modest.
With kids
Under-18s get in free. Multisensory stations with replicas of original objects let you touch, smell and listen.
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Image credits
9
- Nature and German History. Faith – Biology – PowerCourtesy of Deutsches Historisches Museum
- Founded on Antiquity: Berlin's First MuseumPhoto: Johannes Laurentius
- 100 Years of the Dictionary of the Egyptian Language© Ägyptisches Wörterbuch
- Destiny in the Stars: The Beginnings of the Zodiac© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Foto: Sandra Steiß
- Deutsches Historisches MuseumAvda / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Altes MuseumJean-Pierre Dalbéra / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Neues MuseumFred Romero / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Alte NationalgalerieManfred Brückels / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
- PergamonmuseumHerrAdams / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0