capital city of spies: Berlin's Spy Museum

Today’s German capital, Berlin, was the Capital of Spies in the Cold War. The situation of the divided city, which developed after WW2, was unique. The historical heritage provided for excit­ing tours through the city, but many places said that Berlin was still a real esp­ionage hotspot today, due to the 150+ embassies from which espionage still takes place.

Front entrance to the Spy Museum Berlin

The Glienicker Bridge at the border between Potsdam and Berlin wit­nessed some spect­ac­ular spy swaps during the Cold War. Having given much thought to spying since his run-ins with the East Ger­man Stasi under Communism, tv journalist Franz-Michael Gün­ther wanted a museum dedicated to the history of espionage. Berlin is not only regarded as an important historical site during the Cold War, but also as the former  capital city of spies.  Curator Günther opened the museum after starting his coll­ect­ion in 2004, sourcing objects and information from former secret ser­­vice workers, double agents and contemporary wit­nesses. 

A number of locations for the Spy Museum Berlin were consid­er­ed. In 2014 the final choice was made for a site on Leip­­ziger Platz, the ideal loc­­ation for a museum foc­ussing on esp­ion­age. The site of the form­er death­-strip i.e no-man’s land between the inner and outer perim­eter of the Berlin Wall that separated East and West Berlin, was located in the city’s his­toric division. This site feat­ured one of the few openings in the Wall and was the scene of many dramatic spy swaps in the Cold War. It was also close to the important Brand­en­burg Gate, Pots­damer Platz, Bund­es­rat, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Topo­graphie des Terrors and Kultur­for­um with the Philharmonie and Neuer Nationalgalerie.

Spy Museum Berlin opened 10+ years after first Gunther had his idea because it required much work to transform it into a state-of-the-art mus­eum. Combining rare exhibits with high-tech multi­media install­ations, the exhibition welcomed its first vis­it­ors in Sept 2015, and was internat­ionally acclaimed. En­t­irely privately funded, the Spy Museum was an immediate hit but finan­cially problematic.

An improved financial concept was required to secure the long-term future of the museum, which was relaunched by a new operator. It re-opened in July 2016 as the German Spy Museum. With a fresh pub­lic relations strategy and reduced entry fees, the renewed museum con­centrated on its educational role and its exhibit­ions.

The Spy Museum is the only museum of its kind in Germany. The visitor can ex­pl­ore, using state-of-the-art technology, a multi-media jour­ney through the history of espionage. Walk through the Zeit­tunnel/time tunnel which leads into the 3,000m² museum. On entering, feel the sin­ister world of espionage as several cam­eras peer down. Begin with sec­ret scriptures from antiq­u­ity and ends in the present, with the recent National Security Agen­cy deb­ate. He/she gain insight into elaborate spy techniques, leg­en­dary cases and spectacular sec­ret op­erations. And hear former agents talk.

Museum gallery, in a darkish atmosphere

The collection has 1,000+ exhibits. 300 of these are on dis­play, in various themed areas with int­er­act­ive installations, inviting participation. The historic­al objects on dis­play include gloves hiding a pistol and shoes with bugging devices in the heel. There was also the poisoned umbrella used to assass­inate Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in 1978 and the infamous En­igma encryption machine.

The Museum actually linked thousands of years by displaying ob­jects like a cipher technique invented by Julius Caesar, still being used today. It depicted the fascinating secret service methods of: Oliver Cromwell and Napoleon.

The museum’s exhibition space showed many rare exhibits, as meticul­ously reproduced replicas which were presented using high-tech touchscreen displays to explain their us­age. Thanks for Mechtraveller's photos.

Camera hidden in a bra

 Cryptex from Da Vinci Code

 Enigma Machine

Pipe with bone conduction radio

 Bug in a shoe's heel

Ricky French exper­ien­ced the  romance and mystique con­jured by the apparently outdated world of espion­age. See the rows of cameras hidden in everyday household items, clunky con­trap­tions used for decoding messages, and cars with hidden smuggling comp­artments. It all seemed rather quaint since deception is lar­g­e­ly practised now online; it was difficult to imagine a museum ded­ic­ated to computer hacking having the same appeal. But the visitor can see what it took to become a top sec­ret agent and to crack codes. 

The laser maze room was just one of the many hands-on exhibits that helped spying. From encryption tech­niques to phone-bugging to code-cracking, the world of deceit and double-crossing was un­locked. The museum moved between entertain­ment and education, some of it really solemn, with commendable fin­esse. His forensic skills were tested in a laboratory where the quest was to compose and decipher secret mes­sages. And he was shown how documents that had been through a paper shredder could be painstakingly pieced together. One section was ded­­icated to the techniques used by the dreaded Stasi, who placed all East Germans under mass surveillance for years. Another explored the spying methods used in WW1, WW2 and throughout the Cold War. 

The spy museum was completed by a generous sect­ion devoted to the most famous spy in the world, 007. The chips and playing-cards used by James Bond/Daniel Craig in the 2006 adapt­at­ion of Casino Royale were on show, as was a car tyre with ice spikes from Die Another Day and M’s red telephone from Moonraker. 

The Costume Room shows a trench coat, top hat and sun-glasses where the visitor can become a dash­ing spy, posing for a photo against any back­drop eg opt for a street scene on a rainy night, the streetlight illum­inating the raindrops and the car’s head­lights giving the face a suspicious glow. 

Spies, Lies and Deception was a free exhibition at Imperial War Museum London about deception and espionage from WW1 on. Explore how deception plots have changed the course of conflict and the lives of those involved. The exhibition was showcasing objects, digitised film, photography and commissioned interviews until April 2024. Many thanks to Girl Gone London.