DDR Museum

The DDR Museum is located on the banks of the Spree opposite Berlin Cathedral and showcases everyday life in the GDR across 930 square meters beneath the riverside promenade. The collection comprises over 360,000 objects, mostly donated by around 10,000 private individuals. If you want to experience the GDR up close, you can sit in a Trabant here and open every drawer.

DDR Museum on the Spree Riverbank: Everyday History Below Street Level

The DDR Museum is located in the Mitte district on the banks of the Spree, directly opposite Berlin Cathedral and just a few steps from Lustgarten and Museum Island. The entrance leads from Karl-Liebknecht-Straße down into the vaults beneath the riverside promenade, so the entire exhibition is below street level. Excursion boats dock at the DomAquarée pier right outside, and several tram lines stop within sight via Spandauer Straße. Spread across 930 square meters, the permanent exhibition consists of around 50 thematic modules, almost all of which can be touched, opened, and tried out. The foundation is a collection of more than 360,000 objects, most of which were donated by approximately 10,000 private individuals. The museum opened in July 2006 as a private museum and is still financed solely through admission fees and the museum shop, without subsidies or tax money. The museum was nominated twice for the European Museum of the Year Award, in 2008 and 2012.

Prefabricated Apartment, Trabant, and the Depot in Marzahn

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a walk-through five-room apartment of type WBS 70, which has been on display since August 2016. It is fully furnished, from the wall unit in the living room to the kitchenette, and anyone who wishes can open every drawer and sit in the armchair in front of the television. One level down, there is a Trabant, in which a ride through a new housing estate can be simulated. Other stations are dedicated to school, work, holidays on the Baltic Sea, fashion, and surveillance by the State Security, making everyday life between supply shortages and niche society very tangible. Those who wish to delve deeper can find additional parts of the collection at the Museum Depot on Pyramidenring in Marzahn since March 2025. The exhibition texts in the DDR Museum are consistently bilingual in German and English; guided tours and eyewitness talks are available in twelve languages upon request. More than 100,000 students visit here every year. In April 2026, the museum welcomed its ten-millionth visitor.