ENGAGE WITH
THE COLLECTION

COLLECTIONS

The Wende Museum was founded in 2002 to rescue and preserve material culture at risk of neglect and destruction following the fall of the Berlin Wall. It has since grown into a museum and research institute recognized as a leading resource for Cold War history, with particular depth in the Eastern perspective.

The museum holds one of the most important collections of East German art and artifacts in the world, alongside materials from Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and regions across the socialist world — from Asia to the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. The Wende prioritizes collections that would otherwise face destruction or disappearance, making them available to scholars and the public through open access. This work is especially urgent today, as authoritarian regimes continue to destroy and suppress these materials.

The collection includes more than 100,000 artifacts, artworks, books, pamphlets, manuscript collections, photographs, and films, as well as maps, printed ephemera, posters, periodicals, and newspapers. The Wende also holds eleven sections of the Berlin Wall — ten of which form the largest continuous section of the Wall outside of Germany.

In 2020, the Wende began a three-year project to digitize its most important archival collections, funded by Arcadia, a charitable foundation working to protect nature, preserve cultural heritage, and promote open access to knowledge. A subsequent Arcadia grant supports the digitization of Soviet Jewish archives. All digitized materials are freely available through our Online Collections.

ONLINE COLLECTIONS

The Wende Museum’s Online Collections draws from across our holdings and is regularly updated to expand access to artworks, artifacts, documents, films, and historical witness interviews.

Digital materials are provided for education and research only. Access does not confer rights to re-use. It is the user’s sole responsibility to obtain any necessary permissions. The Wende does not hold the copyright to many works in its collection, but where we have information about rights holders, we are happy to share it.

Catalogue records (metadata) are available without restrictions — you are free to share and re-use the text, and we simply ask that you attribute it to the Wende Museum whenever possible. If you reference our collection in a publication, please let us know so we can track how our materials are being used and highlight your work. If you have additional information about any item in our catalogue, we’d love to hear from you at catalog@wendemuseum.org.

Collecting Policy & Artifact Donation

The Wende directs its acquisition resources toward materials that strengthen our core collections, fill significant gaps, or face imminent destruction or dispersal — including historically significant items at risk of passing into private hands and out of public access. The Wende also acquires materials at the request of scholars seeking resources unavailable elsewhere.

If you are interested in donating an artifact or collection, please fill out our Collection Donation Form. The Wende does not accept unsolicited donations.

Research Requests

The Wende welcomes scholars, artists, and researchers who want to work with the collection. To request access, please fill out our Inquiries and Research Requests form.

Loan Requests

The Wende regularly loans objects from its collection for exhibitions at other institutions and welcomes opportunities to collaborate. To make a request, please email collection@wendemuseum.org.

Rights, Reuse, and Open Access

In keeping with its mission, the Wende is committed to broad public access — striving to provide free and open online access to works in its collections and scholarship based on them.

Online Collections

The Wende provides free access to digital versions of its artifacts for education and research. Access does not confer rights to reuse. Reproducing materials protected by copyright beyond what is allowed by fair use requires written permission from the copyright owner. Many works in our catalogue are presumed to be under copyright, but due to the nature of archival collections we are not always able to identify rights holders. It is the user’s sole responsibility to determine whether permission is needed and to obtain it. Where we have information about existing rights holders, we are happy to share it. If you have additional information about an item in our catalogue, please contact us at catalog@wendemuseum.org.

Citing the Wende

Catalogue records (metadata) are available without restrictions. You are free to share and reuse text from catalogue records; we simply ask that you attribute it to the Wende Museum whenever possible — for example, by citing the URL for the record and noting “courtesy of the Wende Museum.” If you reference our collection in a publication, please contact us at research@wendemuseum.org so we can track how our materials are being used and highlight your work. We ask that scholars provide a link to an open-access version of their publications whenever possible.

Takedown Policy

The Wende is committed to ethical, responsible practice in providing access to its collections. If you believe we have published material to which you hold rights and for which you have not given permission, please contact us at catalog@wendemuseum.org. We will remove the material from public view while we address the concern.

Wende Museum Publications

The intellectual property of publications by Wende Museum staff resides with the authors. The Wende maintains a policy that scholarly publications created in the course of employment and referencing the Museum’s collections be made freely available — either on the museum’s website, through the publication’s open-access portal, or both. Authors grant the Wende a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to make their scholarly work available, except where an incompatible licensing agreement exists. The museum will work with publishers to support open access.