International Children’s Day: A breathtaking journey through time

Wow, the silver knight’s armor impressed the grandson. And the tournament game is “great”: He has to demonstrate skill with a lance on a stylized wooden horse. But the cog is also fascinating, or more precisely: the model of a Kraweel ship that can be admired in a display case. Behind it is a globe: The grandson is amazed at how tiny Europe is compared to Africa, Asia and the American double continent. But he actually wants to play chess with Grandma, because in addition to a board behind glass that is artfully made from different types of wood and decorated with inlays, there is another one set up for use. He has just learned the “Game of Kings” on his own chessboard, suitable for preschool children, with funny animal figures. However, Grandma first wants to listen to what the ladies and gentlemen of historiography have to say.

Raphael Gross, President of the German Historical Museum Foundation (DHM), is proud to be able to present his house’s first children’s exhibition to the capital’s press. An experiment: How can primary school children be given “an epoch-making understanding of history”? This will be explored with the exhibition opening in the DHM’s Pei Building on International Children’s Day this Saturday. “The experiment is also important for us in preparation for our new permanent exhibition, which will contain a large children’s and family area.” The permanent exhibition in the former armory Unter den Linden in Berlin, designed by Schinkel, is currently closed.

The new special exhibition is undoubtedly child-friendly. Instructive and playful, arousing curiosity and a thirst for action, it invites you to travel back in time to the 16th century, “to the early modern period,” as Gross mischievously emphasizes, correcting a common misconception that is sometimes propagated by the press. Although the Middle Ages were not a dark period in human history, as is often assumed, the early modern period brought geographical discoveries with a new view of humanity, the Renaissance characterized by humanism, the invention of printing and numerous other technical innovations, with breathtaking expeditions around the globe and the expansion of trade to an unprecedented extent. Which is why contemporaries “described the two centuries from the late Middle Ages to the Great French Revolution in a positive way,” says Stephanie Neuner, who was in charge of revising the permanent exhibition.

“Into the painting!” is the title of the exhibition, for which curator Petra Larass is largely responsible. Four oversized shadow figures welcome visitors at the entrance. Then you have to walk through a curtain draped like a picture frame. The first thing you notice is a monumental painting. An imposing city, richly populated, with a mountain backdrop. It is one of four Augsburg monthly pictures from the museum’s collection and one of the highlights of the old permanent exhibition. The paintings have been extensively restored in recent years. The cycle for January, February and March can now be admired publicly again for the first time. The diverse hustle and bustle of life in a city is made tangible through selected exhibits.

Four colorful cardboard figures, taking up the shadow figures at the beginning, all taken from the painting, take the visitor by the hand or “whisper” into their ear at audio stations. The patrician: »Welcome to my house! You’ll see a lot of things from our everyday lives, let yourself be surprised!” The tournament rider, actually a patrician’s son, who has learned to play the lute but finds lancers more exciting: “Hey, welcome to Augsburg, nice that you’re here.” And the offspring of a merchant from Lisbon greets: “Olá, como vai. Hello, how are you? The journey from Portugal to southern Germany took forever and was quite adventurous.« A dice game enables young visitors to retrace their last stops from Venice to Augsburg. Then the shepherd, in the painting sitting high up in the mountains next to a few blazing logs and blowing the shawm, entices: “Come and warm yourself by the fire! It’s still pretty cold, even though spring is coming.” He draws the listener’s attention to a farmer in the painting: “Hopefully there will be a good harvest in the summer. If the weather goes crazy, all that work will be in vain.”

The four figures symbolize the four major themes of the exhibition. The people and life in an early modern city, patricians and plebeians, immeasurable wealth and abject poverty close together, depicted using silver tableware on the one hand and a secular wooden plate and simple ceramic jug on the other, luxury and misery. The children’s rattle with bell and whistle made of gold, silver and bear’s tooth comes from the cradle of a well-to-do middle class or noble family; it was not found in the hut of a servant and a maid. However, only the upper class could afford lavish banquets and celebrations. Chess was a game of the rich, while the simpler backgammon was popular with the so-called common man. Both board games came to Europeans from India and Persia, although they did not yet see themselves as such at the time. Of course, playing cards are not missing from this show, as Augsburg was known for their production. And they can also be found in the painting of the title, if you have patience when looking at it.

The craftsmanship is praised: the plate makers, weavers, printers, precision mechanics. It is not known whether the small travel sundial with compass or the automatic wall clock seen here belonged to one of the Fuggers, who over the course of three generations became Augsburg’s leading merchant family and one of the most influential dynasties in Europe, even becoming emperors, is not known. Augsburg was a hub for trade with the entire world, as far as it was known at the time. Cloths, silver and salt were exchanged for valuable, expensive spices such as pepper, cinnamon and sugar. The exhibition shows that the goods shipped across the world’s oceans also included people and slaves.

All senses are addressed. In addition to audio and game stations as well as the possibility of touching and feeling, there are also smell tests. Mint and laurel and all sorts of other useful plants can be smelled in cans next to the glass case in which a voluminous book of medicinal herbs lies open. The problem is people’s dependence on nature and on bad weather, which lead to famine. But also people’s crimes against nature. Entire forests are being cleared to make room for expanding cities. Tunnels are eating deeper and deeper into the mountains. It’s not just coinage that is hungry for ores. The shepherd playing the shawm actually suggests an idyll that was already disappearing at that time. The relationship between humans and nature gradually began to suffer irreparable damage.

At the end of the exhibition, an insight into the work of the museologists and restorers is provided. A holey, half-torn painting, canvas samples, paint bottles, brushes, tweezers and a magnifying glass bear witness to their toil in giving old things a new shine. Children can also try it out here. The puzzles displayed in this room, which ask you to recreate the Augsburg monthly pictures on the back wall of the painting, are a challenge. Grandchildren and grandma fail spectacularly.

An exciting journey through time that is worth taking. But: Why Augsburg in particular? Why was a hidden object picture from this southern German city chosen? Wouldn’t something like this by Hieronymus Bosch have provided a good hook? Certainly, a Dutchman (according to today’s interpretation), but whose homeland at that time belonged to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. And whose compatriots were among the first to cross the threshold to “early modernity”, i.e. to the early capitalist order, to acquire the first global trading monopolies with the East India Company and to establish something of a colony with the founding of Batavia (now Java, Indonesia). At the same time, one of the first genocides was committed there (15,000 locals were massacred in 1621 alone). Gross responds to the “nd” query with regret: “We would have been happy to have a Bosch if we had one in our collection.” The museum director adds that they see themselves as a national museum, which is why they didn’t choose Berlin. Okay, that’s understandable, especially since the residential city of Brandenburg-Prussian electors and kings in the 16th century resembled a cow village compared to Augsburg and only flourished with the influx of Huguenots expelled from France.

Nevertheless, there is a lot of social criticism in Bosch’s pictures, which are certainly too allegorical for children and difficult to decipher even for adults. So in the end it was a good decision. “The clever magic dragons”, the museum’s children’s advisory board, which has existed for three years, six to twelve year old girls and boys, who not only acted as the first consumers of the exhibition, but also as inspirers and critics, expressed themselves very satisfied to the press. They would have learned a lot. This is demonstrated, among other things, by how effortlessly technical terms and foreign words such as intarsia or trateggio come to their lips. What was also pleasing was the realization they expressed that a lot of work goes into an exhibition and that it is always a collaborative effort between scientists and craftsmen.

However, it would have been desirable if the exhibition designers had built a bridge to today in terms of thematic focus, with current references. This doesn’t overwhelm children, vigilant contemporaries who will certainly know a lot from their own experiences. Museums should strive for or exceed the standard of “logo!”, the news program from KiKA, ZDF’s children’s television. Not only is misery still rampant in the peoples who were subjugated and enslaved by Europeans from the early modern period onwards; in the rich Federal Republic of Germany, one in five children lives on the poverty line. Children in Rio de Janeiro and Calcutta live in slums and in Africa they sort western wealth waste in smelly, toxic dumps. One percent of the world’s population owns half of the world’s wealth. The West dominates world trade. Wars are still started for economic interests. And humanity is dangerously close to the climatic tipping point. History is present.

»Into the painting!«, German Historical Museum, Unter den Linden 2, 10117 Berlin, until January 29th, 2025, admission-free weekend for Children’s Day on January 1st/2nd. June, otherwise 10 euros for ages 18 and over, open Monday to Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; accompanying interactive video below www.dhm.de/zeitreise/spiel