In-house Archive

With its in-house archive, the Stiftung Deutsches Historisches Museum has a repository of knowledge on the history of the DHM, founded in 1987, and its predecessor institutions. As of 2025, this archive comprises around 70,000 different units: files, plans, photographs and printed matter. Among the oldest original documents are files dating back to 1805. The main collections refer to the Zeughaus (ZH, 1805–1950), the Museum für Deutsche Geschichte (MfDG, 1950–1990), and the Stiftung Deutsches Historisches Museum (DHM, from 1985). Users can consult archival material relating to the museum buildings, past exhibition projects and the development of the collections, or concerning the GDR’s policy on memorial sites, for which the MfDG played a central coordinating role. Significant gaps in the holdings arose as a result of the Second World War and its aftermath, as well as during the liquidation phase of the MfDG (from autumn 1989). The institutional archive is available to both DHM staff and external users for research purposes.