Dresden Transport Museum

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The history of the Dresden Transport Museum (Verkehrsmuseum Dresden):

With its 50-year-old history, the Dresden Transport Museum (VMD) is one of Dresden’s newer museums. Its inception in 1952 as one of the first cultural institutions in the former GDR after the Second World War was directly connected with the establishment of the Hochschule für Verkehrswesen (College of Transport). The origin and tradition of the museum, however, can be dated to the year 1877, when the collectiton of the later Saxon Railway Museum began, which was housed in the Dresden-Neustadt railway station until the Second World War. The museum, therefore, traces back to one of Germany’s oldest technical collections.The holdings of the Saxon Railway Museum (only partly surviving after 1945) were taken over by the future VMD as its first exhibits. In the first years, the work concentrated on the collection, categorization and preparation of suitable exhibition material, including an expansion to all modes of transport. Before the reconstruction and development of the ruin of the Johanneum started in 1954, the new museum was first housed in a shed at the Dresden-Neustadt goods station. During the 750th anniversary of Dresden in 1956, the first completed construction section on the ground floor housed the first exhibition on '120 years of Saxon Transport history'. After further special exhibitions, the part of the museum that was housing the permanent Railway exhibition, could be opened to the public in 1958. Since the inauguration of the Aviation/Aeronautics exhibition (1970/72), all exhibition areas (railway, cars and bicycles, local public transport, shipping, and air traffic) have been presented at the museum. In connection with the reestablishment of the Free State of Saxony in 1990, the VMD obtained the status of a State Museum. The museum celebrated its 50th year of existence with a ceremony in 2002.