'German myths since 1945'

The Cherusci war chief Arminius, also known as Hermann, defeated the Romans in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 A.D. Millennia later, the Nazis instrumentalized this myth alongside other earlier Germanic legends for propaganda purposes. After the war, these figures were all but forgotten. Today he can be found as a caricature of himself — as a garden gnome. Germans love their garden gnomes.

"Gooooal!" The elongated word rings out in the museum's hall. Every German instantly recognizes the radio report on Germany's unexpected victory in 1954 at the Soccer World Cup. After the country's wartime defeat, Germans finally had a reason to express public enthusiasm for their country. But it was Sönke Wortmann's 2003 film that made the event into a founding myth by evoking collective memory.

The 1955 Volkswagen Beetle in the exhibition epitomizes the "Economic Miracle" ("Wirtschaftswunder") of the West German economy. The term describes the nation's rapid economic recovery after World War II. The VW above was item number 100,000,001. The millionth car, specially designed for the milestone, had a technical problem. Fortunately, this cream-colored replacement was ready to go.

In comparison to West Germany, the eastern German Democratic Republic made a concerted effort to create myths that evoked socialist cohesion. Statues dedicated to fallen soldiers from the Soviet Union's Red Army were one such attempt. The Bonn exhibition, on display through September 16, dedicates a separate area to the different myths of East and West Germany.

Still feeling guilty for Germany's Nazi past, some politicians have seen themselves as being responsible for world peace. The decision taken by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in 2003 to abstain from the "coalition of the willing" that participated in the Iraq war under US leadership further strengthened that myth. The Bonn exhibition counters this myth by focusing on German arms exports.

The same holds true for the image of Germans as environmentalists. As a reaction to the perceived threat to German forests that some feared would disappear, the 1980s saw a growing ecological awareness. Sigmar Gabriel, the former economy minister, opened the offshore wind farm Nordsee Ost with an oversized plug in 2015 in an effort to support Germany's energy transition.

"Wir sind Papst" ("We are Pope") cried the sensationalist German tabloid Bild after Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. The paper distributed the slogan on 500,000 badges at the 2005 Catholic World Youth Day in Cologne. "The attempt to turn the event into a national story, however, failed," said the exhibition's curator, Daniel Kosthorst.

In 2012, the European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The original award is part of the exhibition, but organizers claim it did not strengthen a common identity or a "European myth." They believe the identities of Europeans continue to be based on national myths.