Deutsches Tecnik Museum

It was pouring when we got off the S-bahn at Treptow Park -- we were hoping to see a huge, beautiful park along the Spree River with multiple playgrounds and lovely riverwalk, etc. but we decided against it once the paths in front of us became little creeks (we were hiding under the bike shelter outside the subway station). So, thinking quickly we decided to hop back on the S-bahn and go back two stops then change to the U-Bahn (subway) and ride another 6 stops to go to the Deutsches Technikmuseum. In the pouring rain, a museum was the only option. We got SOAKED running the two blocks to the museum entrance, but it was warm and dry inside and loaded with things to do and see.

The Deutsche Technikische Museum takes visitors through the history of most modern innovations including printing, textiles, telecommunications (including huge radios and TVs that are larger than an armoire), railroads, boating, aviation and windmills. It was so cool and very well laid out and there were interactive/hands-on elements in every exhibit.

For instance, in the boating exhibit the kids got to raise the sails of a small skiff. The entrance to the railroad exhibit was a huge roundhouse with a train or two behind each shed door and we could climb up/onto/into many of the engines and passenger cars.

The kids loved running on the traintracks and were curious by the windmills (I explained them using "The Little Red Hen" story as reference). Jasper liked the trains because "they are so strong."

[Luckily the sun popped out for the train & windmill exhibits. :)]

We were there for 3.5 hours! That's a new record for any museum visit with the children. Woot!

(Here's Jay with the museum exhibits run-down.)

C-47 Skytrain, one of the stand-bys of the Berlin Airlift, hangs over the observation deck.

Recovered remains of a JU-88 Stuka, shot down in a lake 70 years ago. Quite amazing there is anything left of the airframe, as most of these planes are paper-thin to save weight and be fast. Goes for airplanes in general.

Possible exception to the "paper-thin" rule is this one, a Russian Sturmovik from the Eastern Front battles of WWII. Heavily armored up front, which made it super heavy, the plane carried a 1680 horsepower engine. This airplane and its closely-related successor went on to become the most produced military aircraft in history with over 42,300 planes built. This engine cowling is all that is left of this one, and the exhibit is about 8 feet long. These were shot down by the Germans in the thousands during the war, but they were replaced even faster.

Kid-gymnastics on the observation deck.

BF-109. No military museum should be without one.

The Museum itself sits at the north end of "Gleisdreieck" which is a word that translates roughly to "train siding." Only a few of the lines that run through this area are currently in use - the rest have been abandoned to the forest. Much of the area went into disuse after WWII when the Soviets took over Eastern Germany, and many of the buildings and industrial detritus are still there. The museum's two gigantic train roundhouses are all that remain of the former rail operations in the area. The area is fascinating: filled with old station buildings and iron returning to the Earth.  

Outside one of the roundhouses. Break for lunch snack. (remember, this was a 3.5 hour museum visit, by far a record.)

Train wheels.

The Bahn. The massive building these locomotives are housed in have 24 bays, each which holds an engine, tender car and more. Both buildings have engines and pullman cars on nearly every bay, so there are a ton of trains to explore. 

One of the more chilling ones is a simple wooden freight car. In keeping with their policy of not running away from from their history, Germans take the approach that remembering what happened in WWII is better than ignoring it. So there is a simple wood-sided freight car exhibit. It is the smallest train car in the building but it is easily the most powerful. It was used to transport Jews to places like Auschwitz, Treblinka and Dachau. The sliding side door stands open and you can walk inside to a dimly-lit interior. Your feet creak on the boards, and you can see shafts of light coming in around the framing. You then decide to exit the car quickly.

Aside of that, the rest of the roundhouse is gold for train buffs. I'm not exactly a train buff, but you do stand a bit in awe at the effort to maintain all this. There are street cars, steam engines, diesels and everything else in a precise timeline from the 1800's til the latest edition of a regional train from the mid eighties.