From May 2026, the German Historical Museum in Berlin’s Pei-Bau will be inviting visitors on a fascinating search for clues through its own collection with the exhibition “Locating Things”. The show presents history not only as a sequence of time, but also as movement and change in spaces. The focus is on objects and collections whose paths, origins and changes in meaning raise questions about political, social and cultural spaces. The presentation takes up the eventful history of the museum itself: from the Prussian Hall of Fame to the Army Museum of the Nazi era and the Museum of German History of the GDR to the collection of today’s DHM.
Five thematic focuses are grouped around the centre of the collection: From art and natural history cabinets of the early modern period, to territorially defined areas of power and economy, vanished places and sites of belonging and identity. In exciting “case studies”, visitors encounter a variety of special objects, some of which are being shown for the first time, which are complemented by interviews, digital narratives and inclusive stations. The exhibition opens up new perspectives on the stories that things can tell — and invites visitors to discover the transformation of objects and spaces as a reflection of our chequered history.
