Fun in a museum – really!

There can’t be many people who approach a museum with undiluted excitement. The thought of rows of dusty objects in glass cases, though of course interesting, still has the
aura of school about it. So a visit to the unexcitingly titled Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin came as quite a surprise. It’s set in the old Armoury – the Zeughaus – just off Unter den Linden, and the permanent exhibition is a brilliant tour through several hundred years of Germany history, featuring paintings, domestic objects, armour, fashion and even toys. Trawling as I was for information about the lives of women and girls in the Third Reich, I was fascinated by this little Nazi doll’s house – pictured here – which even had Hitler toile de jouy wallpaper, featuring little groups of BDM girls and brown shirts in bizarre pastoral groups. Just as exciting was finding a cigarette case with a special brand of cigarettes named after Ernst Udet – the flying ace who appears in my second Clara Vine novel, provisionally titled The Pilot’s Bride.