Last updated on 06/30/2026
Ellen Mehrhoff-Roddewig
I like museums that surprise me rather than lecture me. That is why this list was one of my favourite pieces of research. From the diva's lipstick to the punk museum in Neukoelln, I gathered places you will not find a second time anywhere. Come along on a little tour through curious Berlin.
In Wilmersdorf, in the Bavarian Quarter, star make-up artist René Koch runs the world's only museum dedicated to lipstick. The private collection in his salon apartment ranges from the Baroque period to the present day, transforming a cosmetic classic into a piece of cultural history.
At the foot of the TV Tower in Berlin-Mitte, the Human Museum shows what lies beneath the skin: real plastinated bodies, preserved with a method that has brought anatomy from the lecture hall into the public space. Berlin's most curious museum is also one of its most consistent.
The first Gutenberg Bible was printed on hemp paper, van Gogh painted of course with hemp oil colours and even plastic sandals can now be made from refined hemp oil.
Located in Neukölln, at Karl-Marx-Straße 135, the Berlin Puppet Theatre Museum houses one of the most fascinating collections on the history of puppet theatre in the city. Hand puppets, marionettes, rod puppets, and shadow theatre figures from Europe, Asia, and Africa make this small museum one of Berlin's most curious cultural venues.
Located on Karl-Marx-Allee in Friedrichshain, the world's first museum for digital game culture resides, and the contrast couldn't be more fitting: GDR prefab charm outside, gaming history inside. Over six decades of computer games are tangible, playable, and surprisingly touching here, spread across more than 300 exhibits.
In the Nikolaiviertel in Mitte, on the ground floor of an East German panel building, the Designpanoptikum displays over 3,000 industrial objects that oscillate between horror cabinet and surreal artwork. Here, a Moscow photographer collects prostheses, iron lungs, and cat submarines, without a single explanatory sign.
The Ramones Museum in Neukölln is the world's first and only museum dedicated to the New York punk band, housed in the Bar 19:77 on Weserstraße. Anyone who takes punk seriously cannot miss this collection of over 1,000 original exhibits. The museum is currently moving again, with a new location imminent.
Hidden in the vaulted cellar of the historic Hamburger Hof in Scheunenviertel, Mitte, is Berlin's most peculiar magic museum. Covering over 600 square meters, the MAGICUM Berlin Magic Museum showcases around 450 exhibits from all over the world, from African ritual masks to Dutch witch scales. A museum that takes cultural history and mysticism seriously with humor.
Located in the Nikolaiviertel, just a few minutes' walk from Alexanderplatz, the Hemp Museum Berlin is the only institution of its kind in Germany, dedicating approximately 300 square meters to the cultural history of cannabis. Botany, industrial history, medicine, and prohibition are given equal space here, presented objectively and without moralizing.
In Hellersdorf, a GDR prefabricated apartment still stands today as if time stopped in 1986: The WBS 70 Museum Apartment at Hellersdorfer Straße 179 preserves original furniture, GDR wallpaper, and East German everyday objects across 61 square meters that would otherwise have long ended up on the scrap heap.
