Ticket: Roads not Taken. Or: Things could have turned out differently

The Deutsches Historisches Museum is Germany's national history museum. Located in Berlin's historic centre, it sees itself as a place of lively mediation and discussion of history. Valid directly as a smartphone voucher - no ticket printout necessary. Admission to the exhibition Roads not taken. Or: It could have turned out differently at the Pei-Bau.

The exhibition until 11.01.2026 at the German Historical Museum Berlin

The temporary exhibition in the modern Pei-Bau is dedicated to formative historical events and persons in German history in a European context and looks at them in retrospect along the path of 14 key moments.

Exhibition: Roads not taken. Or: It could have turned out differently

In this exhibition, the German Historical Museum looks back at key moments in German history and at decisive historical events of the 19th and 20th centuries. Possible courses of events are contrasted with actual turns that did not occur for very different reasons. By looking back at 14 distinctive moments in German history, the probabilities of history failing to come to pass are shown - prevented by accidents, averted by misfires or the weight of personal inadequacies.

A historical journey back through German history from 1989 to 1848

The exhibition begins in 1989 with the Peaceful Revolution in the GDR and ends in 1848, when democratic awakening was first attempted in Germany. The exhibition takes up themes such as Ostpolitik, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Cold War, the Nazi takeover or revolution and democratisation at decisive tipping points in reverse and explains that things by no means had to turn out the way they finally did. From this perspective, striking milestones such as the Stalin Notes of 1952, the Korean War in connection with the Berlin Airlift of 1948/49, the failed blowing up of the bridge at Remagen in 1945, the assassination of Adolf Hitler in 1944, the fall of Chancellor Brüning in 1932, the Revolution of 1918, the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 or the German War of 1866 appear in a new light.

An unusual perspective on history

This unusual perspective for a history museum should make it possible to sharpen one's view of known facts and of the fundamental openness of history as the result of constellations and decisions, of actions and omissions.

An exhibition of the German Historical Museum in cooperation with the Alfred Landecker Foundation.