Cold war museum berlin — Local services in Berlin

Overall, it's fine. I'm not sure that I really felt that I "experiended two sides of the same story" as was promised - it's clear that everything was told from a more Western perspective - but there were certainly exhibits from both sides on display.

I felt the musuem had three major issues.

Lack of a narrative.

I don't know a lot about the Cold War, and I certainly don't feel like I came away after really learning anything. Nothing really explained to me how or why it started, or even who the parties involved were. Everything was just kind of there for you to see, and that was that.

Exhibits not labelled - "Scan Me" QR codes.

SO many items weren't labelled. And whilst I was told I could just scan stuff and use their free WiFi to find out more - that's not something I particularly want to do when I head to a musuem - and I arrived with just 20% battery.

Labelleing items and having some text on display would've been a huge game changer.

Further to this...there were some great looking videos being played throughout the exhibit. No idea what was going on in them though - as they had no sound nor subtitles. So whilst they looked ace...they added a grand total of zero to my understanding.

When text is available...THERE'S FAR TOO MUCH!

We almost instantly hit the reverse side here with many of the touchscreen elements throughout the exhibit - in that there's page after page after page of in depth text and that feels like WAY too much. Reading about how chess became a symbol for superioty during the Cold War is great - but did we really need ALL that extra background and info on Bobby Fischer?

The best bit about the whole exhibit was "The Jump" - a VR experience which suffered from being right at the start, as opposed to the end- of the exhibit. And which also felt far too long and...

I don't recommend coming to this museum.

The museum has divided the cold war into 11 different topics on which there is big screens to interact with to get more information about each subject. The information is very good and there is a lot to read about each subject. You have to read all of the information yourself, and the small videos on the subject are all without audio. The problems with these screens are that it only exists 1-3 on each subject and when there is other visitors these will be occupied.

On the time of my visit, about 1/3rd of the screens was not working. Which really kills the fun. As an example, the only screen about atomic bombs was not working, so I couldn't read about them.

This is a very modern museum, you have to use your phone to get access to text about objects in the exhibition. Which means that you waste precious time from your vacation, since you have to get your phone up, scan the QR-code, wait for the thing to load, in order to read "This object was made in 1969". The QR codes also get some German interviews to show up. These are however not translated into English by a human, the English translations have been automatically generated by AI, which means they suck.

The museum feels very empty and unfinished. I really missed having a headset (audioguide) which could read the text for me, give extra information or background, and set some audio on the small videos on each topic.

Since the entire place is on screens, I would probably have enjoyed it better 100% digital, at home on my own computer and a cup of coffe in hand.

I didn't pay the extra fee for the VR experience. 16€ is bad enough.

There is also an option to pay extra to play some random VR game here, which really doesn't fit the theme.

2 stars since the...

They put a lot of effort into this place, but it misses the mark in so many ways.

First, why on earth do they think people want to be reading things on their phones the whole time? Because this is the only way to access information in a lot of cases, you are forced to scan a QR code and use your phone.

Second, the QR codes are on a transparent glass background and your phone often doesn't recognise them.

Third, they focus their advertising on the new "approach" of presenting both sides of the story. This idea is completely lost inside and is not executed in a way that is really convincing, i.e., more than just putting a red background behind Soviet leaders and a blue background behind western leaders.

Fourth, the videos don't play music or any commentary. I came across a 9 minute black and white video of a 50s cartoon which was designed to teach American kids what to do in case of a nuclear attack. I am not going to stand there and watch that in silence without commentary. When we went in it was really early on Saturday morning and all we could hear was the air conditioning humming. Why did they refuse to play any sound?

Fifth, the QR codes are not logically assigned to an exhibit. I scanned the code in front of an automatic weapon in a suitcase and was sent to an interview of someone who was recruited by an Austrian agent to join the CIA.

Sixth, 20€ is way too much for something that's not that unique. I reckon 8-10€ would be a better price.

I did the VR leap with Conrad Schumann, and I found that to be pretty good, but face protector thing they give you was annoying and instead of the girl fitting it for me I'd much rather do it myself.

Overall, I really wasn't too impressed at all and you can learn more from watching the BBC Cold War...