Museum of Oceanography (Berlin)
The Institute and Museum for Oceanography (IMfM or MfM) were founded in 1900 as institutions of the Berlin University . The museum opened on March 5, 1906 in the presence of Kaiser Wilhelm II . The museum was closed and destroyed during World War II.
Origin, structure and task
The concept is based on a marine model exhibition from 1897/98, which was initiated by the Reichsmarineamt and the Prussian Ministry of Culture. The aim of the new facility was "to raise the understanding of the branches of knowledge related to the sea and marine life and to awaken a sense of the national and economic importance of marine interests." The museum was from the beginning both for the academic and for designed for the non-academic audience. It was located at Georgenstrasse 34 to 36, in the rooms of the former chemical laboratory. The institute had a close connection to the Geographical Institute of the university, not least through Ferdinand von Richthofen as founding director and Albrecht Penck , who was director of the institute and the museum for a long time.
Six years passed between the establishment and the opening of the facility, which was partly due to the slow procurement of objects: the donations and the purchase budget were too small to implement the concept more quickly. In addition, preparations should be obtained through time-consuming expeditions. The procurement of the objects promised by the German Emperor was by no means smooth. The emperor instructed that the existing collections of his navy should in principle be preserved and only "expendable" objects should be handed over to the museum. After all, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz , State Secretary of the Reichsmarinamt since 1897, did not want any excessively offensive naval propaganda in order not to provoke a British preemptive strike. The ongoing - instead of forced - fleet armament for reasons of cost should correspond to an equally cautious “public education”. This strategy worked. The museum makes its intended contribution to the “enthusiasm for the navy”. It was popular among the population and also appreciated in international specialist circles.
End and whereabouts of the collections
The museum was badly damaged, closed and not rebuilt during World War II . The majority of the exhibits are on loan from the Humboldt University in the Deutsches Technikmuseum, some are also in other locations, e.g. B. on the traditional ship type Frieden in Rostock or got lost in the context of the post-war chaos. - In the meantime, twenty-two paintings, most of them from a collection originally comprising one hundred works, have been rediscovered in the archive of the military history training center of the Mürwik Naval School . These are pictures by the marine and landscape painter Alexander Kircher from a series that depicts the development of German shipping over a millennium .
literature
- Röhr, Albert: Pictures from the Museum of Oceanography in Berlin. 1906-1954 . Ed .: German Maritime Museum . Oceanum, Bremerhaven 1981, ISBN 978-3-86927-200-9 .
- Isaiasz, Vera: Museum of Oceanography, Fleet Construction and “Marine Biology” . Qualification document from February 23, 2000 as e-text on the document server of the Humboldt University in Berlin
- Catalog for the exhibition: "Aufgetaucht - Das Museum für Meereskunde" (Berlin contributions to the history of technology and industrial culture; series of publications by the Museum für Verkehr und Technik Berlin , Volume 15). Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung 1996. ISBN 3-87584-588-9
- Claudia Schuster: The Institute and Museum for Oceanography in Berlin - Research, Popular Education and Fleet Propaganda, in: Ulrich van der Heyden and Joachim Zeller (eds.): Colonialism here in Germany - A search for traces in Germany. Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-86680-269-8 , pp. 150–152.
- Karaschewski, Jörg M .: A hall of fame for emperor's flags: The flags and flags of the Reichs-Marine-Sammlung in the Museum für Meereskunde, Berlin. Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt 2016, ISBN 978-3-7322-3688-6
Web links
- Detailed description of the museum with holdings, history and list of literature in the database of university museums and collections in Germany (funded by the DFG), object database
- Exhibition area “predecessor museums ” of the German Museum of Technology Berlin
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wolfgang Loeff Germany's sea sailing - from the German dugout canoe and Viking ship to the German battleship and express steamer - part of the picture by Alexander Kircher - Berlin, 1939
- ↑ Alexander Kircher: The German Navy , Munich, 1939
Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '11.2 " N , 13 ° 23' 28.2" E