Germany: Memories of a Nation
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Germany: Memories of a Nation
Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, explores 600 years of Germany's complex and often challenging history using objects, art, landmarks and literature.
Recent Episodes
30 episodes
Reichstag
Neil MacGregor began his journey through 600 years of German history at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, and ends it at the Reichstag, seat of the Germ...
Barlach's Angel
Neil MacGregor focuses on Ernst Barlach's sculpture Hovering Angel, a unique war memorial, commissioned in 1926 to hang in the cathedral in Güstrow.
The New German Jews
After concentration camps like Buchenwald and extermination camps like Auschwitz, it seemed that the story of Jews in Germany must come to a full stop...
Out of the Rubble
Neil MacGregor talks to a Trümmerfrau, a woman who cleared rubble from the streets of Berlin in 1945, and focuses on a sculpture by Max Lachnit, a por...
The Germans Expelled
Neil MacGregor focuses on a small hand-cart to tell the story of the forced movement of more than 12 million Germans, who fled or were forced out of C...
At the Buchenwald Gate
Neil MacGregor visits Buchenwald, one of the earliest and largest concentration camps.
Producer Paul Kobrak.
Purging the Degenerate
Neil MacGregor examines how the Nazis attacked art they viewed as 'entartet' - degenerate.
He charts how Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister...
Money in Crisis
Neil MacGregor examines the emergency money - Notgeld - created during World War One and its aftermath. Small denomination coins began to disappear be...
Kathe Kollwitz: Suffering Witness
Neil MacGregor focuses on the art of Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945), who expresses the loss and suffering of war, especially after the death of her younge...
Bismarck the Blacksmith
Neil MacGregor charts the career of Otto von Bismarck (1815-98), known as the Iron Chancellor: he argued that the great questions of the day should be...
Bauhaus: Cradle of the Modern
Neil MacGregor focuses on the Bauhaus school of art and design, founded in Weimar in 1919.
Our cities and houses today, our furniture and typogr...
From Clock to Car: Masters of Metal
Neil MacGregor focuses on the long tradition of German metalwork, from finely-engineered clocks to the Volkswagen Beetle. German gold and silversmiths...
Porcelain: The White Gold of Saxony
Neil MacGregor focuses on how 18th century German chemists discovered the secrets of Chinese porcelain, known then as 'white gold' - translucent, fine...
Dürer: An Artist for All Germans
Neil MacGregor focuses on the work of Dürer (1471-1528), arguing that he is the defining artist of Germany, his image - and his self-image - known to...
Gutenberg: In the Beginning Was the Printer
Neil MacGregor examines the life and legacy of Johannes Gutenberg, who invented moveable type and pioneered the printing press. For many, it is the mo...
1848: The People's Flag and Karl Marx
Neil MacGregor reflects on the events of 1848, when black, red and gold became the colours of the flag for a united Germany, and Karl Marx and Friedri...
Iron Nation
Neil MacGregor charts the role of iron in 19th century Prussia, an everyday metal whose uses included patriotic jewellery and the Iron Cross, a milita...
Holbein and the Hansa
Neil MacGregor charts the rise and fall of the Hansa, or Hanseatic League, a great trading alliance of 90 cities, including Lübeck, Hamburg, Danzig, R...
Riemenschneider: Sculpting the Spirit
Neil MacGregor focuses on the religious sculptures of Riemenschneider (c1460- 1531), whose reputation as an artist has steadily risen. He is seen as a...
The Battle for Charlemagne
Neil MacGregor visits Aachen cathedral to examine the legacy of Charlemagne (c. 747-c. 814) - was he a great French ruler, or was he Charles the Great...
One People, Many Sausages
Neil MacGregor focuses on two great emblems of Germany's national diet: beer and sausages. He visits Munich to find out how regional specialities repr...
The Walhalla: Hall of Heroes
Neil MacGregor visits the Walhalla, one of the most idiosyncratic expressions of national identity in 19th century Europe - a temple to German-ness, m...
One Nation Under Goethe
Continuing his focus on the things which bind Germans together, Neil MacGregor examines the life and work of Goethe, the greatest of all German poets:...
Fairy Tales and Forests: The Grimms and Caspar David Friedrich
Continuing a week of programmes with a focus on the things which bind Germans together, Neil MacGregor reveals how the fairy tales collected by the Gr...
Luther and a Language for All Germans
Neil MacGregor continues his series with a week of programmes with a focus on the things which bind Germans together - ranging from the importance of...
Fragments of Power
Neil MacGregor discovers how coins reveal the range and diversity of the Holy Roman Empire, with around 200 different currencies struck in the differe...
Strasbourg - Floating City
Neil MacGregor visits Strasbourg, now in France, but also a city with a key place in German history, culture and precision engineering, as revealed by...
Kafka, Kant and Lost Capitals
Continuing the week's theme of Germany's floating frontiers, Neil MacGregor visits two cities now beyond Germany's present borders, but which played i...
Divided Heaven
Neil MacGregor examines the story of the two Germanys, East and West, created in 1949, through objects including a wet suit used in an escape attempt...
The View from the Gate
Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, begins his series examining 600 years of German history through objects, with a reflection on Germany'...