The Museum für Deutsche Geschichte and German National Identity

Bibliographic Data

ID9645575
AuthorsH Glenn Penny (0009-0000-2715-3099, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, corresponding author)
Year1995
Volume28
Issue3
Pages343-372
Publication date1995-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCentral European History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0008-9389 • E-ISSN: 1569-1616
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0008938900011869
OpenAlexW2126163674
LanguageDE
Citations received2
References cited19

Not far from the Brandenburger Tor on Unter den Linden, visitors to the Museum für Deutsche Geschichte (MfDG) entered Berlin's most beautiful Baroque building. Built by Europe's finest architects under the auspices of Prussia's Kings, the Zeughaus once held a collection of the nation's weapons and Prussia's trophies of war. But since its restoration in the 1950s, this eighteenth-century edifice's long sculptured hallways and high-ceilinged rooms housed the Marxist story of the German people's struggle; images of Prussian peasants, Silesian weavers, and hardened revolutionaries were arranged in glass cases, displayed upon walls and surrounded by Socialist banners, Communist papers, and early Protestant texts. Resurrected from the annals of Germany's past, these images were brought together to fashion a German history, to create the foundation for an East German national identity, and to provide legitimization for the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED)

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Baroque · Cold war · Communism · German · Iron Curtain · National identity · Political science · Politics · Protestantism · European history and politics · French Historical and Cultural Studies · German History and Society · History · Law

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