DB Museum in Nuremberg— The Home of German Railway History

Japan Railway & Transport Review 43/44 • March 2006 17

World Railway Museums

Feature

DB Museum in Nuremberg—The Home of German Railway History

Rainer Mertens

Background

German railways were born in Nurembergon 7 December 1835 when the first steamtrain departed from the city on a 6-kmjourney to the neighbouring town of Fürth.This marked the start of developments thatwould catapult Germany into theindustrial age within a few decades. TheRoyal Bavarian Railway Museum—thefirst museum dealing with the railways,their technology and history—opened itsdoors just 65 years later on 1 October1899, making it Germany’s oldestmuseum of transport history.Together with the postal section openedin 1902, the Museum of Transportation—as it became known—has been acornerstone of the Nuremberg museumscene from its inception. Since 1925, themuseum has been housed in what wasthen new premises in Lessingstraße, justsouth of the old centre of Nuremberg.1985 saw the addition of a rolling-stockhall, followed in 1990 by the acquisitionof a 1.5-ha outdoor area.The privatization of railways and postalservice in the early 1990s saw the greatestchanges to the museum since 1925,because the railways and postal servicesections were split into separate museums.The latter section is now the Museum ofCommunications and is managed by theF o u n d a t i o n f o r P o s t a n dTelecommunications History, which alsomanages three other museums.In 1996, the railways section, which hassome 80% of the museum area, wasrenamed the DB Museum, becoming theofficial museum of the then new DeutscheBahn AG (DB AG) railway companyformed 3 years earlier by the unificationof the Bundesbahn and Reichsbahn(former West and East German railwayoperators). Although managed separately,the two museums still continue to workclosely together. For example, servicessuch as the ticket office, shop, café and

exhibition spaces are run by the DBMuseum on behalf of both museums.When DB AG took over management, thelong-established railway museumunderwent extensive renovation under theleadership of Dr Jürgen Franzke, its newdirector. The museum was visualized asplaying an important role in presenting DBAG’s corporate image to the public.During the following years, the exhibitshave been fully updated both in terms ofform and content, the collections havebeen rearranged and catalogued in acomputer database, and services have

been widened and modernized. Out-of-date sections have been removed and newareas of activity have been started.Furthermore, new locations have beenestablished nationwide to house the largecollection of more than 100 pieces ofrolling stock, giving the museum apresence throughout Germany.

New Directions

Following some renovation of severalparts of the Nuremberg main building, the

Germany’s oldest railway carriage on display in new permanent exhibition (DB Museum)

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main renovation started in 1999 and thena new permanent exhibition covering anarea of 2500 m2 and dealing with thehistory of railways in Germany was setup gradually. This project clearly shows

the new direction the museum is taking.Originally, the museum was seen asdealing with the history of technology, soits main task was to demonstrate thetechnological development of railways as

a t r anspo r t a t ion sy s t em. As aconsequence, original rolling stock wasexhibited along with signals and signalboxes, communications technologies, andother technologies related to railwayconstruction. However, there was nosocial, economic and cultural contextshowing the significance of railwaysbeyond the purely industrial. The Eras ofRailway History exhibition, which openedin the 1985 anniversary year, was the firstto examine the economic and politicalconditions in the 19th and 20th centuriespaving the way for the development ofrailways, although priority was still givento railway technologies.With this new permanent exhibition, thetechnological development of Germany’srailway system is now integrated into aholistic consideration of the railway’shistory and its reciprocal interactions withpolitics, economics, culture and society.Visitors move chronologically through200 years of railway history, from itsbeginnings in England around 1800 untilthe present. Some exhibits, such as In theService of Democracy and Dictatorship:The Reichsbahn and the ReichsbahnCompany 1920–45, and On SeparateTracks: Railways in East and WestGermany 1945–89, as well as a specialsection dealing with the history of railwaystations, have been complete for severalyears. The next and largest sectioncovering the period from the start ofGerman railways until the end of WWIopened in October 2005. The completionof a section dealing with railway reformand the present and future of railways inGermany is planned for 2007.

Team Planning

The exhibitions were planned by a six-person team of historians under myleadership. Support and advice wasreceived from a museum advisorycommittee set up by the DB AG boardRailways and 1848 Revolution exhibition (DB Museum)

Start of the permanent exhibition: English coal wagon of 1829 from the National Railway Museum at York(DB Museum)


and containing historians, railway expertsand politicians, including historian LotharGall, Hermann Schäfer, head of the BonnMuseum of History, and GüntherGottmann, former director of the GermanTechnology Museum in Berlin. TheNuremberg offices of designer MariusSchreyer and graphic designer JörgMü l le r were respons ib le for theexhibition design.

Holistic Presentations

The aim of holistic presentation of railwayhistory is to strike a good balance betweenpresenting complex information on onehand and offering visitors an entertainingand exciting museum experience on theother. Consequently, various topics arearranged in a clear thematic way withinan overarching chronological order. Keyobjects provide visual points oforientation—the remains of destroyedrailway platform pillars provide the focalpoint for the topic Destruction andReconstruction, while the Railways in theEconomic Miracle theme is envisionedthrough exhibits of a Goggomobil micro-car and a rail bus.Some topics needed total reworking anddisplay in new ways. For example, thehistory of the Reichsbahn is nowrepresented for the first time in the OnSeparate Tracks exhibition shown inpara l le l wi th the h i s tory o f theBundesbahn. Issues such as the role ofthe railway in the Cold War, the differenteconomic developments in each country,the technological achievements of therespective railways and the travel culturesthat developed on each side of the IronCurtain are at the heart of the exhibition,which concerns both the railways and apanoramic overview of 50 years ofpostwar German history. The parallelpresentation permits direct comparison ofparticular developments in former Eastand West Germany, such as the initial

teething problems of each railway system,the respective modernization processes,and employees’ working conditions.Equally, The Railway under NationalSocialism exhibition is now presented tothe public with an appropriate length andin a high-quality way. Those responsiblefor the exhibition were particularly

anxious to ensure that the role of the staterailway in WWII and the Holocaust isshown openly and clearly. The scale ofthe forced labour, the importance of therailway as a pillar of the war and itsculpable involvement in the Holocaust areall clearly presented by exhibits, texts,pictures and documentary film. The

Railway Modernization in 1920s exhibition (DB Museum)

19th Century Railway Passengers exhibition (DB Museum)



media, visitors and partners who providedmaterials for the exhibition—Holocaustsurvivors, former forced labourers, etc.,have praised the exhibition.

Key Exhibits

The section opened in October 2005covers the period from the beginnings of

railways in Germany until WWI. Two keyexhibits are veterans of railway history—an English coal wagon dating from 1829and an original passenger carriage fromthe first German railway—illustrate thetransfer of railway technology fromEngland to Germany and are of greatintrinsic interest as one of the oldestEuropean railway vehicles standingnext to the oldest remaining Germanrailway vehicle.The answer to why Nuremberg broughtthe railway to Germany is found bywatching a short film produced especiallyfor the exhibition, which brings keyfigures from that time back to life.Nuremberg’s original 6-km stretch oftrack sparked off development of theGerman rai lway network, whichexceeded 33,800 track-km by 1880.The A Century under Steam exhibitionmakes reference to steam locomotives ofthis period. It was chosen to evokeimages o f no i sy s team-poweredmachines and fac tory chimneysbellowing smoke, recreating a factorywith towering mounds of coal and steel.The railway was a key ‘locomotive’driving German industrialization; itcarried jobseekers to the industrial areas,leading in turn to rapid growth of cities.Exhibition visitors find themselves in themiddle of a large period city where theyencounter a crowd of characters, rangingfrom schoolchildren and workers to well-to-do holidaymakers. All travel by railand show their tickets.The WWI exhibition reveals anotheraspect of railway transport—it ensured asupply of reinforcements, making possiblethe new mechanized warfare. The lastroom uses a dramatic and shockingpresentation on the importance ofrailways in the course of WWI.

New Media

The design of the new permanent

The original Royal Waiting Room of the former Nuremberg Central Station (1863) (DB Museum)

Railway under National Socialism exhibition (DB Museum)


exhibition has been developed accordingto modern museum standards. Visitors finda diverse range of objects, documents andinteractive elements embedded within alandscape marked by various experiencespaces, large-scale wall illustrations, andAV media. The presentations are designednot to overwhelm visitors and constructionof fake historic sets was actively avoided.Inclusion of an educational expert on theteam allowed first-visitor interest to beaccounted for in designing the exhibition,selection of exhibits and use of text. Thiswas not always an easy task, because thespaces of the old building frustrated someaims of the exhibition designers.Other exhibition areas have been newlyredesigned alongside the permanentexhibition. The Railway Experiencecreated in 1997, offers a playfulintroduction to the railway theme based onthe idea of ‘museums to touch.’ Spreadover an area of 1000 m2, the railway worldcan be experienced using all the senses—movable models explain development ofthe railway system, the actual driver’s cabof an electric locomotive can be exploredinside and out, a tunnel can be traversedto vividly illustrate the differences betweentunnel construction then and now, usingsights, sounds and smells, and an excitingdiorama shows railway development andassociated changes to the landscape andsettlements in the 19th and 20th centuries.A particular magnet is the interactivedriving simulator allowing visitors to trytheir hand at being a train driver whilesitting in an actual cab and navigating arange of computer-simulated track sections.

Historic Rolling Stock

Another attraction is the 25 or so piecesof historic stock on display in two halls,ranging from an original 1945 passengercarriage from the Ludwigsbahn railway tothe Nordgau steam engine, the oldestsurviving original German locomotive, the

Fliegender Hamburger 1932 with itsgroundbreaking technology and design,and the TEE-Triebzug VT 11.5 from the1950s. Full-size replicas of the oldest andnewest engines—the Adler and ICE 3—sit side-by-side, embodying the ‘fromAdler to ICE’ motto of the DB Museum.In addition to its unique stock collection,the museum has an important collectionof railway objects and documents relatedto the history of German railways. Some10,000 objects, ranging from signallingmechanisms to complete signal boxes arestored by the museum. The collectionincludes 400 uniforms—one of the mostimportant uniform collect ions inGermany—as well as a collection of 200model trains (1:10 scale) with the oldestdating back to the 1880s. In addition, themuseum has a huge document archive ofover 1 million photographs, around100,000 pictures and 2500 m of shelvedwritten materials. Especially important arethe photographs dating mostly from 1930to 1990 from the various photographicdepartments of the railway companies, aswell as a collection of rail ticketsextending back to the earliest years. Of

special interest is the several-thousand-strong collection of advertising placardsdating from the 1920s. Historic film canalso be found in the museum’s collectionbut most has been handed over to statearchives, as has the majority of officialdocuments from pre-1920 local andstate railway companies. Finally, themuseum has an extensive library ofrailway-related literature.Both the documents and literature areopen to the public for reading in themuseum’s unique reading room, whichwas renovated in 2001.

Public Access

Since 1999, the museum has beens y s t e m a t i c a l l y r e o r d e r i n g a n dcataloguing the documents, objectsand literature in a computer databasein coopera t ion wi th the DB AGarchives in Berlin as part of the Railwayand Company History InformationSystem project. Over 100,000 dataitems have been entered so far and thecollections are already accessible

Replica of Adler and ICE side-by-side in rolling stock hall (DB Museum)



online internally, and public Internetaccess is being planned.The richness of the museum’s collectionsand exhibitions is made accessible to thepublic in many ways. An educational

programme aimed at specific target groupsoffers guided tours, museum-basedgames, and special events. These rangefrom teacher education events tochildren’s birthdays, school group visits

and a programme for apprentices workingfor the railway. The publicly accessiblelibrary and document archives offer awide range of services, from quickresearch to picture reproduction.Different museum rooms can be hired forall types of event, ranging from weddingsto conferences.Finally, a varied event programmeensures that a visit to the DB Museum isnever boring. A particular recent highpoint was the special exhibition TheBaghdad and Hedjaz Railways—GermanRailway History in the Near Orient,which caught the public imagination farbeyond Nuremberg.

Local Exhibitions

But not only Nuremberg has beenchanging; in order to house the largecollection of rolling stock—now over 100engines, wagons and carriages—whilealso making them accessible to peoplebeyond Nuremberg, a number of locationsare in the process of being built acrossGermany since 2001. At present, historicrailway stock can be seen in authenticsurroundings at locations in Koblenz andHalle. The Koblenz location is in a formerwagon repair yard in the Lötzel area andhouses 15 vehicles. Six electriclocomotives sit side-by-side with severalunusual saloon carriages from theReichsbahn and Bundesbahn periods.The Halle location is in an historic engineroundhouse that belonged previously tothe Halle Locomotive Research Institute(LVA), which made a considerablecontribution to the high technologicallevel attained by railways in the GDR. Aparticular attraction of the Halle locationis the collection of high-speed steamlocomotives from the Reichsbahn.These locations are assisted by volunteerswho focus on preservation and restorationof historic stock—work that is very labourintensive. This cooperation has great

Children’s railway world (DB Museum)

Library reading room (DB Museum)


Rainer Mertens

Dr Mertens is Head of Collections, Exhibitions and Marketing at the DB Museum. He studied history,

political science and economic science at Erlangen and obtained his doctorate from Bayreuth. His

publications include Profil eines Reformers zwischen Aufklärung und Romantik co-author with Johannes

Scharrer; Was ist Was?—Die Eisenbahn (co-author); Geschichte der Eisenbahn in Deutschland Vol.

1–3 (co-author), and other articles on railway history and the 19th century.

General Information on Deutsche Bahn AG DB Museum

Lessingstraße 690443 NurembergTel.: +49 (0) 180-444-2233Fax: +49 (0) [email protected]://www.dbmuseum.de

Opening Hours:09:00 to 17:00 Tuesday to SundayTickets:Adults €4Children (6–14 years), schoolchildren €2Groups (10 or more people) €3School groups (per pupil) €1.50Guided tours by appointment

Outdoor area activities with young people (DB Museum)

benefits for both sides—the railway fanscan pursue their hobby, while the museumbenefits from an inexpensive means ofcaring for its historic railway parks.In addition to the stock collections, theseloca t ions hos t smal l permanentexhibitions of local interest or numerousspecial events. Visitors to such eventsenjoy the special atmosphere of thehistoric workshops and sheds.

Fire Damage

The large fire at the Nuremberg depot ofthe DB Museum on 17 October 2005caused huge loss when it destroyed anhistorical shed and damaged 24 pieces ofvaluable rolling stock in storage there.These included an operational replica ofthe Adler steam locomotive and its fourcarriages built for the 100th anniversaryof the Nuremberg and Fürth railway in1935. The DB AG board has decided thatthey must be rebuilt to operationalcondi t ion in t ime for the 175thanniversary in 2010. Whether any otherdamaged vehicles can be restored is nowbeing examined.Despite this accident, the renovation ofthe DB Museum will continue in thefuture. By using its main base inNuremberg, its locations throughoutGermany and a varied programme ofevents, the museum will present a ‘totalrailway experience,’ leaving behind thelimits of traditional museums. This is theright and necessary course for anymuseum competing for visitors againstother leisure and entertainment activities.Surveys show that the main visitors to themuseum are not railway fans—althoughthey an important group—but are familieswith children. This means the museum iscompeting with wildlife and leisure parks,cinemas and other modern entertainmentexperiences, necessitating a high level ofinvestment in exhibition technologies andequipment, as well as the ability and

readiness of staff to meet the needs of themodern consumer and leisure societywhile not losing sight of the museumcontent, quali ty of exhibits , andpreservation and documentation ofrailway history.The DB Museum has set its sights on

offering the public demanding content inan entertaining and accessible way, basedon one of the world’s largest collectionsof railway history. �

Documents

DB Museum in Nuremberg— The Home of German Railway History