A VISIT TO THE WENDE MUSEUM IS A MUST

DISCOVERING OUR VALLEY    2011

As an element in The Museum's professional growth, our Board of Directors and Committee Chairs have begun systematic visits to important, and developing, museums in our part of Southern California. Most recently, Board Member Liane Schirmer arranged for us to visit the remarkable Wende Museum in Culver City. It was one of the most stimulating museum experiences that we've shared.

Liane Schirmer, member of The Museum's Professional Development Committee, responding to a community propaganda poster on exhibit in the Wende Museum.  (click on image to enlarge it.)

For many of us, the fact that young Americans in our colleges and universities have no appreciable memory of the existence of the Berlin Wall, a divided Germany, and the real threats to our nation's survival during the Cold War. The presence of the world's largest collection of Soviet Era artifacts outside of Europe resides here in the greater Los Angeles area. 

 Heroic Egg Sorter - propaganda painting - Wende Museum in Culver City  2011

Ceramic sculpture of Heroic Miner - Who Exceeded His Quota -  Wende Museum 2011

Museum Board Member Bronwyn Ralph inspects an exhibit of commemorative plates at the Wende Museum in Culver City.  "Wende" is a German word meaning the "turning point."

Defacing a bust of Lenin during the Soviet control of East Germany could have easily resulted in prison and/or torture. Here, painted with colors from the West, is a statue defaced shortly after the fall of East Germany in 1989

Library of the Wende Museum. It contains many soon to be priceless books related to Cold War history.

Protected with earthquake protection netting, the leaders of the communist world peer into history, Most of these kinds of artifacts were quickly destroyed after the fall of the Soviet Union, and East Germany in 1989.

The Wende Museum

5741 Buckingham Parkway, Suite E, 

Culver City, CA   90230