The DDR Museum is an interactive museum located in the former governmental district of East Germany, right on the river Spree. Its exhibition shows the daily life in East Germany (known in German as the Deutsche Demokratische Republik or DDR) in a direct ‘hands-on’ way. For example, a covert listening device gives visitors the sense of being ‘under surveillance’.
The museum was opened on July 15, 2006, as a private museum. The private funding is unusual in Germany, because German museums are normally funded by the state. The museum met some opposition from state-owned museums, who considered possibly ‘suspect’ a private museum and concerned that the museum could be used as an argument to question public funding to museums in general.
