A Short History of the Museum
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Many of the incidents that marked German History in the past 200 years also had a strong influence on the fate of the Museum für Naturkunde.
The Museum für Naturkunde emerged from the union of three separate museums that had been established simultaneously with the founding of the Berlin University in 1810, including: the Anatomical-Zootomical Museum, the Mineralogical Museum (founded in 1814) and the Zoological Museum. |
Around 1880 the collections occupied about two-thirds of the main university building. Already in 1875 the stock of zoological objects was estimated to comprise 600,000 specimens. The collections had grown very large. They filled numerous rooms of the university, starting to impede scientific research as well as visits to the museum. It was therefore decided to erect a new house for the museum. This building was inaugurated by emperor Wilhelm II on December 2, 1889 in the Invalidenstraße and has been the location of the Museum ever since.
From 1889 onwards the museum had to deal with the huge number of objects which were brought to Berlin from the German colonies. Large expeditions furthered the growth of the collections during that time: the 'Gazelle' expedition, the plankton expedition with the ship 'National', the Valdivia deep sea expedition, and the Tendaguru expedition, which brought about 250 tonnes of fossilised dinosaur bones to the museum.
Soon thereafter, the size of the zoological collections dramatically increased, requiring the addition of a five-story cross wing to the existing quadratic building during the years 1914-1917.
The second world war was a catastrophe for the museum. The famous zoologist Walter Arndt, working at the Museum für Naturkunde, was sentenced to death for 'defeatist utterances' and executed on June 26, 1944. On February 3, 1945 the east wing of the museum was destroyed in a bombing raid. Earlier raids had damaged the roof, but little damage had been done to the collections as many objects had been brought to safer places. But with the destruction of the east wing, the big mammals and the newly built Whale Hall with its magnificent whale were almost completely smashed. Nevertheless, the Museum für Naturkunde was the first museum in Berlin to be reopened on the 16th of September 1945.
Post-war reconstruction was a difficult process. Therefore the public exhibitions were not modernized until the 1960s. The collections, however, still grew through valuable donations, as well as through objects collected on expeditions to Cuba, the People's Republic of Mongolia and the Soviet Union. Visits to western counties were an exception whereas western scientists were allowed to work in the museum rather freely so that the scientific communication could still be kept up.
The Museum für Naturkunde was reorganised after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the German Reunification. It was then divided into three institutes: the Institute of Systematic Zoology, the Institute of Palaeontology and the Institute of Mineralogy. In 1992 the roofs and parts of the facade were renovated and modern research laboratories were built for the three institutes. In August 2003 the exhibition 'Preparation' was opened as a new part of the permanent exhibition. At the same time, the 'Humboldt-Exploratorium' came into being, where mainly the young visitors of the museum can do some scientific work on their own with the help of scientists and museum educators. In 2005 a considerable change in the exhibitions started as about one third of the exhibition area is currently being modernized.
2006 the museum was again reorganised. For the first time a full-time general director was appointed. The institutes were dissolved, a Department of Research, a Department of Collections and a Department of Exhibitions and Public Education taking their places. By the end of 2006, the reconstruction of the bombed east wing began.