Life in the GDR Museum

Life in the GDR Museum - darkometer rating : 3 - A new branch of the Haus der Geschichte ( German History Museum, Bonn ). This one is in Germany 's capital city Berlin and concentrates, as the title suggests, on everyday life in the former GDR , including its darker aspects, such as repression by the Stasi , shortages, socialist propaganda, etc. > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos What there is to see: Lots and lots of artefacts from the GDR era grouped into a series of themes. The text panels providing explanations also have translations into English, but quite a few items on display have writing on them too, and that's obviously almost always in German only. Still, it's laudable that international visitors have not been forgotten here. Even so, you will get more out of this museum if you are familiar with both the German language and a bit of GDR history too. On arrival in the foyer of the museum, I was greeted by a museum employee in a friendly way, but the main point of this is to explain that bags, including handbags, have to be stored in lockers. Also in the museum foyer is a fairly well-stocked museum shop with plenty of books, brochures, postcards and other thematically related items. Well worth a look afterwards. The main permanent exhibition starts to the left of the entrance and kicks off with a veritable onslaught of socialist propaganda posters and two glass cabinets with busts of communist big shots, both international ( Marx , Lenin et al.) and from the GDR (e.g. Walter Ulbricht, Otto Grotewohl, etc.). Upstairs, the main part of the exhibition looks into topics such as the military of the GDR (NVA) and what the general draft meant for the young.