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Museum

Photo: Deutsches Museum | Christian Illing

Special items

Highlights from the Deutsches Museum’s collection

Historically significant objects are collected across 61 specialist departments – ranging from ships and cars to quantum processors and atomic physics – and there are remarkable finds to be discovered in every area. Find out more here about selected highlights from the collection.

Highlight – Historical Aviation

The Lilienthal glider

The dream of flight and what remains of it. We get up close and personal with Otto Lilienthal’s 'Normal-Segelapparat'.

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Deutsches Museum App

Discover the museum’s highlights

Explore exhibitions, follow guided tours and never miss a thing: the free Deutsches Museum app is the digital companion for visitors. Available in eight languages, the app guides you through the museum with interactive maps and descriptions of exhibits. Two highlight tours are also on offer.

Download the app

Time and Space

A guide to take away

Folding sundial made of ivory, Leonhard Miller, Nuremberg 1652, Inv. No. 69503

Our oldest keyboard instrument

Elegance and grandeur

Harpsichord by Franciscus Patavinus, Venice 1561, Inv. No. 25909

Highlight – Music

Siri’s ancestor

One of the most remarkable items in our collection is the Kempelen’s speaking machine, dating from around 1800.

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Power machines

A brilliant idea

‘First diesel engine’ DM 250/400, Maschinenfabrik Augsburg, Rudolf Diesel, Augsburg, 1893, Inv. No. 3096

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Strange rays

Apparatus for measuring radioactivity by Pierre and Marie Curie, Inv. No. 9042

Mining

Effortless up and down

Miner on the (Museum) Funicular, Georg Ludwig Dörell, Zellerfeld, 1833, Inv. No. 52422

Aviation

Flying saloon car

Junkers F 13 commercial aeroplane, Junkers/Reuter, Dessau, 1927, Inv. No. 78042

An unexpected discovery

How science is changing the world

Nuclear fission table by Hahn, Meitner and Strassmann, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, 1938, Inv. No. 71930

The famous ‘Enigma’

Unbreakable

Enigma rotor cipher machine, Arthur Scherbius, Heimsoeth & Rinke ohG Cipher Machine Company, Berlin, 1941

Everyday helpers during the economic miracle

Stirred and chopped

Bosch HM/KA1/220 B food processor, Robert Bosch GmbH, Stuttgart, from 1952 onwards

Nobel Prize in Physics

Nano-worlds in pictures

The scanning tunnelling microscope made history in the field of microscopy in 1986; Antoni van L., Delft, c. 1700, Inv. No. 1993/432

Highlight – Marine Research

Secrets of the Deep

The hose-free diving apparatus, developed in 1912, promised to offer divers greater mobility and safety in rugged terrain.

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History of Calculating Machines

The Age of General-Purpose Computers

In 1941, Konrad Zuse created the world’s first programmable binary computer, the ‘Zuse Z3’, Inv. No. 74692

The legendary cipher device

Cipher device 41

The ‘Hitlermühle’ was put into operation towards the end of the war. Fritz Menzer, its inventor, had discovered vulnerabilities in the Enigma cipher machine.

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Deutsches Museum

Collecting, planning and researching

Current situation and plans

The Deutsches Museum’s collection

Collecting and preserving are the core tasks of the Deutsches Museum. Discover some of the highlights from our collection of around 125,000 objects and see for yourself how our collection has developed and what our collection strategy is.

About the collection

Strategy and Planning

Guidelines on Collection Development

How should one plan the composition of a museum collection and strategically manage acquisitions and deaccessions? The Deutsches Museum has drawn up its own guidelines for collection development.

About the development of the collection

Research

Collection-related research projects

As an integrated research museum, the Deutsches Museum hosts projects at its research institute that explore our collection in various ways.

Collection-related research projects

Objects with a problematic provenance?

Provenance research

Colonial artefacts, Nazi provenance and other areas of concern: The Deutsches Museum is fulfilling its political and moral obligations by proactively reviewing its collections for potentially problematic contexts of acquisition.

Provenance research

Collection, Archive, Library – explore digitally

Our online services

Deutsches Museum Digital

Over 50,000 objects, over 40,000 books, over 100,000 archival records and much more besides! As well as the highlights of the collection, you can explore our museum on virtual tours, pass the time with apps and games, and find out about the museum’s latest digital research.

Deutsches Museum Digital