Deutsches Museum

The Deutsches Museum (German Museum), located on the Museum Island (Museumsinsel) in the Isar River in Munich, Bavaria, is the world's largest science and technology museum by exhibition area — covering approximately 73,000 square meters across 90 departments — and one of the most visited science museums in Europe, attracting over 1.5 million visitors annually before the COVID-19 pandemic significantly reduced attendance.

Founded in 1903 by Oskar von Miller and opened in its current building in 1925, the Deutsches Museum's founding philosophy was to make science and technology accessible and comprehensible to the general public through original objects, working models, and interactive demonstrations rather than mere display cases. This philosophy placed the museum at the forefront of hands-on science communication and influenced science museum design globally.

The Deutsches Museum's aerospace exhibits are among its most celebrated and extensive. The aviation hall contains historically significant aircraft including original Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters, the Junkers Ju 52 transport, and early glider aircraft from the Lilienthal era. The spaceflight section features an original Ariane 1 rocket, the Spacelab D1 module (the Spacelab science laboratory that flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1985 on Germany's first major crewed space mission), lunar samples from Apollo missions, and historical rocketry artifacts spanning German V-2 development (Wernher von Braun's work at Peenemünde) through modern ESA mission hardware.

Following a major phased renovation that began in the 2010s and will extend through the 2030s, the Deutsches Museum is systematically modernizing its exhibits to integrate digital interactives, current scientific research, and contemporary perspectives on technology's societal impacts. The museum also operates three branch museums in Bavaria: the Deutsches Museum Flugwerft Schleißheim (aviation at a historic air base north of Munich), the Deutsches Museum Verkehrszentrum (transport history), and the Deutsches Museum Nuremberg.