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What makes this exhibition
so distinctive is that

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for the first time, it draws the museum’s
institutional and collection history

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from the objects themselves,
and seeks to convey it through them.

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In doing so, it takes
an entirely different approach

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from the museum’s other
thematic exhibitions,

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which tend to illustrate
their subjects by means of objects.

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Here, by contrast, the objects
themselves are

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the protagonists and are treated
as actors in their own right.

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The selection was made
largely on the basis

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of conversations with other
curators of the collection,

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with colleagues, but also
through research in the database.

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This led to a number of
surprising chance discoveries.

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Looking at what was
deliberately acquired during

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the Nazi period, you find:
relatively little.

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Then, as you go through
the years in the database,

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you suddenly, in 1938,
come across a suit of samurai armour

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which had been presented
by the Kyoto Reservists’ Guard as

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a personal gift to Adolf Hitler

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and later entered
the former Army Museum.

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This object was unknown to
the curators responsible for the collection

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and to the wider public, and
had not been unpacked for forty years.

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In developing the scenography
with our two designers,

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we paid very close attention

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to ensuring that the objects
enter into dialogue.

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The samurai armour
just mentioned, for example,

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stands in close proximity and
in direct relation

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to the last field uniform
worn by Kaiser Wilhelm II

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as supreme warlord
of the German Empire

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before his abdication and flight
into Dutch exile in 1918.

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These two objects, positioned
close to one another,

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speak to each other and
intensify each other’s impact.

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The same is true
of the deliberately created

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contrast between a magnificent
Biedermeier ensemble,

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which was rescued through the turmoil
of the Second World War,

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and a refugee bed
from a shelter in Kassel.

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Among the Kunstkammer objects
in the second part

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of the tour, too, there are
recurring lines of connection

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that form small spatial ensembles.

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For example, the glass welcome beaker
of the Princes of Oettingen,

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the Ortenburg Bible, one of only ten
surviving copies worldwide

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of an early Luther Bible
on parchment, and a

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painting of the Salvator Mundi,
Christ with the globe,

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are displayed in
direct relation to one another.

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They illustrate the religious upheavals
of the early modern period around 1530.

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The exhibition takes this
one step further

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by creating a deliberate rupture:

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after admiring
beautiful Kunstkammer objects

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from the early modern period
and the 18th century –

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figural porcelain and
an engraved ostrich egg –

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visitors suddenly find themselves facing
heavy work equipment

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from the last hard-coal mine:
a colliery in Bottrop

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which closed its doors in 2018.

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Yet this rupture is only
an apparent one, because

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through the way
they are presented,

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we have sought to stage
these everyday objects, too,

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as if they were
precious Kunstkammer objects.

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There, the construction helmet
and the tool bag,

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the knee pads
and the heavy boots,

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hover like precious relics
in a wall-mounted display case.

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The underlying idea was to offer
visitors an exhibition

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in which they feel welcome,
in which they can immerse themselves

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in this world of immensely
varied object stories that we present.