AlliiertenMuseum

Highlights of the permanent exhibition

The objects you see at the Allied Museum are almost exclusively originals, most of them from our own collection.

When the Western powers marched into Berlin in the summer of 1945 and held a parade together with the occupying forces of the Soviet Union, the Soviets ordered the population to fly the flags of the four victorious powers to welcome the troops. A few of these hand-sewn flags made of fabric remnants can be seen at the beginning of the permanent exhibition in the Outpost Theater.

One of the highlights of the permanent exhibition is the Hastings TG 503, a British transport plane from the Airlift era. It stands on the Museum grounds and has become a sort of emblem of the Museum. In the warmer months, generally from April to October, you can visit the interior of the airplane as well.

The second part of the permanent exhibition in the Nicholson Memorial Library features the first satellite image of Berlin taken around 1965 by the U.S. intelligence agency CIA. You can clearly see the city’s island position in the middle of the Soviet zone of occupation, the restricted military areas in the GDR, and the Berlin Wall.

Not far away the original façade of the first guardhouse at Checkpoint Charlie is on display. The wooden hut was built on Friedrichstraße just a few months after the construction of the Wall. For many years it stood on the spot made world famous by the “tank standoff” of October 1961 between the USA and the Soviet Union.

One of the most popular objects in the permanent exhibition is the Berlin spy tunnel. It was planned and constructed beginning in 1953 by American and British intelligence to tap Soviet communication lines in the eastern part of the city. The tunnel segment on display has been restored to its original state.