The Museum Karlshorst was first opened in 1995 as a joint collaboration between Germany and Russia to commemorate aspects of WWII, including the historic event of the surrender of the Wehmarcht on May 8, 1945. This remains the only museum in Germany that provides insight of hostility against the Soviet Union, thus providing a unique insight into the war from different perspectives. The building itself used to be the former officers' mess of the German Armed Forces' Pioneer School which served in the Soviet Military Administration of Germany. The building was then used as a Soviet surrender museum until 1994, where it was changed to be the museum it is today.
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| Outside facade of the Karlshorst Museum. |
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| An example of Soviet Union's propaganda. |
The museum itself was intriguing in that it provided information from the Soviet Union's perspective on WWII compared to what might be covered at other exhibits; this could be attributed to the building's previous function. The difference of information being told in this museum might differ quite dramatically from one told from a Canadian perspective, for example that which would focus on the western perspective instead. What impressed me the most was the type of information displayed by the museum; there would not be many other places that one could read so extensively about Soviet Union's part in the second world war including propaganda and other information. As well, the museum portrays the sheer brutality of the war in photographs which may not be as common as in other museums, but which plays an important role in acknowledging what actually happened. It also covered many different aspects of the war, including different propaganda used by the Soviet Union, maps illustrating spatial information, photographs, a diorama describing a war scene and many more.
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| Map of Soviet Union war camps and approximate number of deaths. |
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| Photograph of a woman and child depicting the starvation that occurred. |
My general impression of the museum is that it provides very valuable information that might otherwise not be available under different circumstances, as well as that this information is helpful in understanding the war on a deeper level.
Source: German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst. (n.d.). Retrieved May 22, 2015, from http://www.museum-karlshorst.de/en.html
