“Democracy – now or never”

 The permanent exhibition is devoted to the history of division and unity, dictatorship and resistance in the Soviet Occupation Zone and its successor, the German Democratic Republic. The exhibition particularly illustrates the history of the repressive system of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, of civil disobedience and of the Peaceful Revolution of 1989. On 2.000 square metres and divided into twelve sections, 3.200 objects present political, economic, cultural and everyday historical interrelationships within the GDR. The renewal of the permanent exhibition, completed in 2007, reinforces the biographical access to history and focuses on everyday life in the GDR.