The Los Angeles-based Wende Museum is a non-profit organization dedicated to acquiring, preserving, and enabling access to cultural and political objects, personal histories and documentary materials of Cold War-era Eastern Europe. The scope of the collection encompasses artifacts and archives from all former Warsaw Pact states and emphasizes life in the Soviet Union and East Germany, a country on the front line of the Cold War. Since the Museum’s establishment in 2002, its collection has provided a unique resource used by students, scholars, journalists and political observers from both East and West to investigate the diverse experiences and cultural expressions that emerged as a result of, as well as in spite of, communist rule. The Wende Museum’s own interdisciplinary research—including innovative exhibitions and community outreach efforts—provides a nuanced exploration of a society whose dominant ideological and political framework was largely dismantled in a few short years.  

The Museum offers a broad and comprehensive collection of over 100,000 objects and archival materials, including household consumer products, clothing, folk art, diaries and scrapbooks, political iconography, photograph albums, posters, films, textbooks, paintings, sports awards and certificates, and children’s toys. These resources, which are often outside the scope of official archives and traditional museum collections, present a valuable window through which to view the everyday interactions and relationships that shaped life behind the Iron Curtain.

Among the many unique artifacts in the Wende Museum’s collection is a 2.6 ton segment of the Berlin Wall painted by renowned wall artist Thierry Noir; the complete run of the East German official daily newspaper Neues Deutschland; blueprints, lighting fixtures, ashtrays and even menus from the now-demolished Palace of the Republic in East Berlin; and the personal papers of former East German leader Erich Honecker from his days in the Moabit prison. A recent donation from a former East German border guard includes a wealth of official documentation describing the construction and maintenance of the Berlin Wall as well as the logbooks, stamps and facial recognition systems used on the eastern side of the infamous Checkpoint Charlie border crossing, thus allowing exploration of this iconic landmark of the Cold War from a less familiar perspective. To supplement these extensive collections, the Museum has embarked upon its Historical Witness Project, which aims to capture the oral and written testimony of those who produced, consumed, manipulated and sometimes suppressed the physical record of the Eastern Bloc.  

Following the democratization movements of Eastern Europe in the 1980s, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Cold War came to a dramatic conclusion. Since then, throughout the former communist states of Eastern Europe, historical landmarks have been torn down, statues vandalized, documents destroyed, and consumer products replaced by global brands. The Wende Museum is committed to ensuring survival of threatened artifacts in order to provide a more comprehensive investigation of the Cold War—a pivotal and complex period that continues both to influence our present and to inform our future. 

The Museum has played a central role in the preservation of artifacts that might otherwise have been eliminated from the historical record. The Museum continues to grow, making important acquisitions, mounting special exhibitions, and expanding access to its resources through creative programming. We welcome your interest, support, and involvement in shaping the Museum’s future and ensuring its continued success.