In Bonn, the Art Center of the Federal Republic of Germany, which opened in 1992, and the Museum of Contemporary German History, which opened in 1994, attract thousands of visitors. In Berlin, the Museum of German History presents German history in its entirety right up to the present time.

A special role is played by museums of cultural history and ethnology on account of the broad range of their displays. The unparalleled Deutsches Museum (German Museum) in Munich, for instance, has original items and models depicting among other things the worldwide development of technology and science, while the Germanisches Nationalmuseum (National Museum of German Culture) in Nuremberg has the largest collection on the history of German art and culture from prehistory to the 20th century. Also worthy of special mention is the large number of ethnological museums. Their proliferation is attributable to the fact that Germany produced many explorers and scholars who were keenly interested in foreign cultures. In addition to the Berlin museums, the Linden Museum in Stuttgart and the Roemer-Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim deserve special mention in this context.

There is a growing demand for special exhibitions focusing on a particular theme. Historical exhibitions such as “Europe and the Orient” and “Jewish Life”, both of which took place in Berlin in 1989 and 1991 respectively, attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors, as did “The Franks - Preparing the Way for Europe” in Mannheim at the end of 1996 and “Marianne and Ger-mania”, a comprehensive exhibition on the history of Franco-German relations featured in Berlin’s Gropius Building at the end of 1996.