Exhibition explores German perspectives on the Brits
Heike Mund
July 10, 2019
While many are focused on the UK's exit from the EU, a new exhibition titled "Very British" looks at the way sport, pop culture, the Cold War and the Queen bring Germany and Britain together.
Image: DW/H. Mund
Advertisement
A new exhibition at the Haus der Geschichte in Bonn examines how the relationship between Germany and Britain has evolved since 1945. The curators of "Very British — A German Point of View" dove deep into the British-German relationship to find the objects that have brought the two nations together over the past six decades.
They even managed to find the famous tiger skin from the British New Year's Eve sketch "Dinner for One" in a private collection. In Great Britain the mention of this strange TV piece draws blank faces, but in Germany it has a cult following.
Presented in eight unique sections, the exhibition begins with the German dismay at the Brexit vote, which is reflected in Jacques Tilly’s "Brexit gun" design for a Carnival parade float in Düsseldorf in 2018.
A model-sized version of the Jacques Tilly float caricaturing Theresa May's suicidal Brexit policy. Image: DW/H. Mund
The exhibition especially focuses on how the Germans saw their English neighbors and their cultural quirks — particularly up until German reunification in 1990. The headline "Spinnen die Briten?" (Are the British crazy?) on the front page of an old newspaper could also be from today in the context of Brexit.
Passing the football
Britain's imminent exit from the EU also had exhibition organizers in Bonn wondering if the show would go ahead. There were concerns that the shipments of the exhibition pieces might have problems reaching Germany. A hard Brexit could have been a death knell for the exhibition project that was conceived in 2016.
This led the director of the National Football Museum in Manchester, Tim Desmond, to transport the precious leather football used in the legendary 1966 World Cup final between Germany and England in his own private luggage. The day before the opening of the exhibition, he himself placed it in the display cabinet at the Haus der Geschichte.
After the 1966 World Cup final — won by England 4:2 — German player Helmut Haller took the precious ball with him and secretly brought it to Germany as a souvenir, a move that was not exactly beneficial to the German-British friendship. It wasn't until 1996 that England's Football Association officially received the trophy back from Germany.
Britain is only allowing the football from the 1966 World Cup final to be kept in Germany for two weeksImage: DW/H. Mund
Precious exhibits: King George I's crown
Other valuable exhibits were lent to Germany with special permission from Queen Elizabeth II. An entire exhibition room is dedicated to the Royal Family.
In the center sits the royal crown of George I, who came from the northern German city of Hanover. His reign represents the German roots of the British royal family. The valuable headdress is one of the crown jewels and is kept in the Tower of London. It is not allowed to leave the country without the Queen's permission.
The admiration for the British monarchy is unbroken in Germany, as the exhibition in Bonn shows. Conveying how Germany's interest in the royal family has evolved over time, the exhibition especially focuses on the new generation of royals, including kitschy souvenirs such as plates and key rings featuring portraits of Prince William and Kate Middleton, as well as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Europe's most famous and longest reigning monarch makes her fifth visit to Germany. During a three-day-trip, the queen is to meet the top dignitaries and pay respects to victims of the Nazis.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/R. Michael
Military honors for the British queen
Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, started their visit in Berlin on Tuesday evening, with the British monarch welcomed by a 21-gun salute and military jets flying overhead.
Image: Reuters/F. Bensch
If Berlin streets could talk...
Fans of British royalty took to the streets of Berlin to try and catch a glimpse of the queen on her way to the Hotel Adlon. Here the royal Bentley passes the famous Brandenburg Gate.
Image: Reuters/W. Rattay
Getting comfortable
After arriving to Berlin on Tuesday evening, the queen's entourage probably didn't have a difficult time finding their rooms overlooking the Brandenburg Gate. The Hotel Adlon flew the royal standard the queen's suite.
Image: Reuters/W. Rattay
A heavy escort
Berlin police said it would deploy close to 1,500 officers to keep the queen safe, during her first visit to Germany in a decade.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/G. Fischer
A morning stroll with the German president
Wednesday's first meeting saw Queen Elizabeth be received by German head of state Joachim Gauck in the president's residence, Bellevue Castle.
Image: Reuters/F. Bensch
British weather for a Berlin cruise
After meeting President Gauck, the queen and her husband took a cruise down Berlin's Spree River in an open-topped boat.
Image: Reuters/P. Kopczynski
A marriage for the times
Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, have been married since 1947, six years before the queen's coronation. The Duke of Edinburgh turned 94 in June.
Image: Reuters/H. Hanschke
The most powerful women in Europe?
German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed the queen on at the Chancellery. Merkel also had a meeting scheduled with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Image: Reuters/F. Bensch
Moments of remembrance
The queen laid a wreath at Neue Wache, the Berlin's memorial site for the victims of war and violence. On Thursday, the Queen and her husband will visit the former Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, which was liberated by British troops in April 1945.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Berry
9 images1 | 9
Post-war reconciliation
The exhibition explores how German-British relations were given a new political foundation after the end of World War Two. During a speech in Zurich in 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill spoke for the first time of the "Iron Curtain" dividing the Soviet-controlled Eastern Bloc from the rest of Europe. In 1956, Churchill was awarded the Charlemagne Prize in Germany for his political foresight.
The 1948-49 Berlin Airlift that wrote another chapter in British-German history is a central part of the broad history presented in "Very British." During the Cold War, the Soviets blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the parts of Berlin under Western control. In addition to the Americans, the so-called "raisin bombers" of the British Royal Air Force flew in food and essential supplies for the starving Berlin population. This helped to force Stalin to lift the blockade in May, 1949.
In 1956 then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was awarded the Charlemagne Prize for his political foresightImage: picture-alliance/dpa
Berlin spy stories told by Brits
The heavily bombed city of Berlin that sat on the frontline of the Cold War became a playground for espionage services from all over the world. British writers such as John le Carré and later Timothy Garton Ash who spent time with Germany were targeted by the Stasi and KGB, the German Democratic Republic and Soviet secret services. Spy novels became bestsellers in post-war Germany and many were turned into successful films, as the exhibition's extensive display of book and film artifacts show.
Every Friday, BBC Radio would read out letters from critical GDR citizens that were smuggled out of East Germany using secret mailboxes — a largely unknown chapter that the exhibition sheds light on. The British soldier broadcaster BFN thrilled young people in Germany with its popular culture and music programs. DJ and presenter Chris Howland, known as "Mr. Pumpernickel," became a star in West Germany.
Bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones became Britain's greatest musical exports in the 1960s and fans in Germany worshiped them like gods. Pop culture from the "Swinging Sixties" cultural revolution in London dramatically changed the German cultural landscape.
British music — from Elton John to Sting, from Ed Sheeran to Adele — continues to shape the German-British cultural exchange to this day, and the exhibits at the Haus der Geschichte in Bonn help to tell this evolving cross-cultural story.
"Very British — A German Point of View" runs July 10, 2019 to March 8, 2020 at the Haus der Geschichte in Bonn.
How mini-skirts changed the world
Mary Quant, the mother of the mini-skirt, is at the V&A London. Quant changed the way we view femininity when she designed the fashion sensation in the 60s — and shaped the image of young, modern, self-aware women.
Image: Express/Getty Images
It all began at her gran's
A fashion buff in the 1960s, Mary Quant got her first taste of the fashion design life by trimming her grandmother's knee-length skirts. Then she took on the boutique, Bazaar, in London's Chelsea neighborhood, where sold her own tailor-made skirts. These were much shorter than the modest skirts her mother and grandmother had worn — ending at least ten centimeters above the knee. Outrageous!
Image: DW
Short and sweet for the young, modern lady
"I liked my skirts short because I wanted to run and catch the bus for work," Quant once said. The young designer sold not only hip designs in her boutique, she changed the image of the young, modern woman forever with her mini-skirts. But she didn't stop at mini-skirts — always inventing new looks and trying out new materials, like PVC: "Fashion is a very ongoing, renewing thing," she said.
Image: Express/Getty Images
"Swinging Sixties"
The mini skirt became a symbol of London's "Swinging Sixties." Twiggy, the young model with the thin legs, androgynous figure and pixie haircut, wore the short skirts on the catwalks of the world. Members of The Beatles also frequented Quant's boutique to find dresses for their girlfriends; the store was, at that time, on King's Road: the epi-center of "Swinging London."
Image: Getty Images
King’s Road
Mary Quant never wanted to be the sole recipient of the fame her mini-skirt creation flamed. "The King's Road girls invented the mini-skirt. I had already made the skirts short, but the customers always wanted them shorter," she once said. Yet the style was christened mini, after Quant's preference for the car of the same name.
Image: Evening Standard/Getty Images
Mixed messages: adored by the Queen, despised by the pope
When the first young ladies stepped out in public wearing the short skirts, they were issued warnings by stern-faced police officers. Some even had to make sure that such a skirt length was allowed at all. The Vatican condemned the style as lewd, but Queen Elizabeth, seen here in 1965 on her visit to Germany, awarded Mary Quant a medal for her services to the fashion industry the following year.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/K. Rohwedder
Hyped around the world
The daring idea caught on among designers and the media took a fancy to it. In 1962, "Vogue" showed Quant's designs. By 1964, the mini-skirt had arrived in Germany; a year later, the trend had established itself worldwide. Yet it was not until the end of the 60s that such short skirts also appeared in the collections of renowned French fashion houses such as Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Dior.
Image: picture-alliance/J. Brooks
Branching out: cosmetics and accessories
The trend didn't end, even as Mary Quant discontinued her fashion line in 1969 to concentrate on a line of accessories, cosmetics and lingerie. She attributed her getting into the make-up business to an interest in designing "a complete look, from head to toe." Although the designer herself retired in 2000, the eponymous label is still around. Her contributions are on display in London's V&A.
