Away from Oktoberfest, Munich's museums also serve science on tap It's September and the German city of Munich is celebrating Oktoberfest. But away from the beer tents, schnitzel, and lederhosen lies a set of museums worth visiting for the price of a few beers. The Deutsches Museum is celebrating 100 years since its opening on May 7, 1925. One of the museum's press officers, Sabine Pelgjer, …
Thank you for this article, El Reg!
Every 2 years, when returning to Munich to visit family and friends, the Deutsches Museum is part of my pilgrimage, interrupted only by the one year nearly all was shutdown for the height of renovation. Last year, things were slowly opening up again, though many favourites remain closed. The new aviation department is superb - and I talked myself into getting a flight on the flight simulator, showing my faded pilot's cert and demonstrating that I knew the Diamond twins inside and out, courtesy of flying them in my flight sim setup all the time! :-D
As there is a convenient river running beside the museum, a tunnel could be bored out from the basement to the river, and the submarine sailed out to allow refurbishment of the basement. A certain Boring Company could carry out the tunnelling. It was established by a self-proclaimed expert on submarines (particularly for use in Thailand).
In the meantime, the submarine could give tourist trips along the river bed and earn some money for the museum. Assuming it is still seaworthy and has working engines. Hmmm, perhaps there are some flaws in this plan?
The U boat is certainly not sea worthy. It was acquired by the then-director of the museum by clever negotiation at the end of the Great War. The German navy was required to dismantle all their U boats and the director presented the case that cutting a hole through the pressure hull would prevent it being usable, and putting it into the basement of a museum hundreds of kilometres from the sea would make it doubly unusable. The U boat was therefore acquired and displayed as a cut-away exhibit.
Extra Geek points available for anyone who cares to name the location of the "other" U boat in Munich?
Personally I was a bit disappointed by the Deutsches Museum. Possibly because of all the hype around it. The list of exhibitions is indeed incredible, but the whole thing felt shallow showcasing a bit of everything, but avoiding being too geeky as not to scare away the non-technical crowd.
The best part was possibly the one that I cared about the least - the bridge engineering segment. It was definitely arranged by engineers rather than historians. The optics segment was also detailed, just a bit dark.
The Verkehrsmuseum was a hit and miss. It's a very large collection for a public museum, I needed much more time for it than I originall expected. But when it comes to cars & motorcycles there are so many private museums with much broader coverage of brands and ages all over the continent that it's difficult to compete with them. When I was there it seemed it was mostly for children education. I'd definitely bring my kids, but possibly not the place if you're into classic cars. The condition of some of the vehicles on display was daunting.
My wife and I enjoyed the museum years ago, although she was fine after two hours and cranky at four, and I was a little sad at leaving that early... We're going back with our kids in a month and this time splitting up because my son will (probably) want to spend the whole day there with me!
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