The collections of the German Historical Museum

The Poster Collection comprises approximately 60,000 posters and covers the time from 1890 to the present -- from the early placards of events and advertisement bills to domestic and foreign World War I posters as well as items from the time of the Weimar Republic, National Socialism, World War II, the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany. On the whole, the thematical focus is on political posters.

The collection of the former Museum for German History laid the foundation for the current holdings. It was enlarged, for example, by parts of the collection of the Jewish dentist Hans Sachs, who had to leave Berlin and Germany in 1938. This important collection was confiscated by the Nazis and later thought to be lost in the war. For more than 30 years, Hans Sachs, who already as a high school student in the 1890s was fascinated by posters, was engaged in collecting items by renowned artists such as Cheret, Mucha, Steinlen, Bernhard, Edel, Gipkens, Klinger, Fennecker, Hohlwein, Kainer, Pechstein, Scheurich and many more. He was thus able to gather a collection of high quality that constitutes a representative cross-section of the art of posters prior to 1920.

See some examples to get an impression of the collection.