Police Museum

- darkometer rating: 3 -

A museum, called “Polizeimuseum Hamburg” in German, about the history and work of the police in Hamburg, Germany, covering several dark aspects and a few (in)famous high-profile crime cases. It’s pretty well made and of interest not just for locals.

>What there is to see

>Location

>Access and costs

>Time required

>Combinations with other dark destinations

>Combinations with non-dark destinations

>Photos

What there is to see: Quite a lot actually, more than I had anticipated.

Once you’ve passed the security gate, where you have to show ID, you follow the signs to the building that the museum mostly occupies. Inside is the reception desk where you have to buy your ticket, and there’s also a cloakroom and a small café (with a giant teddy bear in police uniform in one corner – at least when I was there).

The first exhibition room is about the older history of the Hamburg police force and hence mostly of less interest to the dark tourist more interested in contemporary history. But the displays of e.g. helmets, handcuffs and pistols show how these have developed over the decades.

All labels and texts, by the way, are bilingual in German and good translations into English – so foreign visitors are well catered for too.

It gets truly dark with the coverage of the “Hamburger Aufstand” (‘Hamburg Uprising’), a communist insurrection of October 1923, in part led by Ernst Thälmann (who was later arrested by the Nazis and murdered at Buchenwald in 1944). In the Uprising police stations were stormed and 17 policemen killed. But it lasted only a day before the Uprising collapsed. Dozens of insurgents and innocent civilian bystanders also lost their lives.

More violence followed from the Nazi side, e.g. in July 1932 in the district of Altona, where the SA organized a march through mostly left-wing parts of town. Things got out of control when two SA men where shot, the police were out of their depth in the ensuing chaos and scores more people, mostly civilians not actually involved on either side, were shot dead by the police. The event became known as the “Altonaer Blutsonntag” (‘Altona Blood Sunday’ … not to be confused with the Northern Irish one!) and was used as a pretext by the then government in Berlin to unseat Hamburg’s social democrat leadership and police command. Four communists were later put on trial by the Nazis in May 1933 and sentenced to death (despite the lack of evidence for their guilt) – the first political death sentences of the Nazi regime.

The Nazi era forms a core part of the subsequent coverage in this section of the museum, mostly in the form of text-and-photo panels and some original documents. Included are all the well-known means of repression and terror, now in a centralized form headed by Heinrich Himmler. A poignant document on display is the advance order to the police not to intervene in the pogroms against Jews on 9 November (“Reichskristallnacht”, or ‘night of broken glass’).

Of course it got even worse, and the participation of policemen in mass murder operations against Jews later in WWII as part of the Holocaust is covered too.

The post-war efforts of denazification and finding perpetrators are another subsequent topic. And while some Nazis were indeed put on trial later, many former policemen in the Nazi era were re-employed by the police in the 1950s after the occupation by the Allies had ended and the FRG had been founded.

A special section is devoted to the catastrophic floods in Hamburg in February 1962, which cost hundreds of lives and were a major emergency operation for the police and fire brigade.

The exhibition then moves into the more modern era after 1962. One section focuses on the police work in the Reeperbahn district, Hamburg’s fabled but also notorious red-light district with a high crime level.

In the final corner of the ground floor is a complete reconstruction of a police station from that time, with desks and typewriters (one staffed by a mannequin), old-style telephones, ashtrays filled with cigarette butts, stamps, a teleprinter machine, filing cabinets and: an arrest cell in one corner. There’s also a portrait photo on the wall next to a German national flag – this photo shows Heinrich Lübke, who was Federal President from 1959 to 1969.

In the modern history parts the coverage includes the student protests in the late 1960s as well as the anti-nuclear movement, which frequently involved brutal clashes with amassed riot police. Also covered is the story of the terrorist group R.A.F. and the police manhunt efforts to arrest its members.

The exhibition then continues upstairs and is now thematically structured. First comes the topic of forensics in its many forms. Amongst the exhibits are a machine for testing banknotes for forged specimens, a machine for assembling identikit portraits, various chemical test kits, including ones for testing suspected drink drivers. Mock samples of various drugs from Ecstasy pills to cocaine are on display too.

Also upstairs is a life-size police helicopter cockpit and a real-life police patrol car, the largest exhibits of the entire museum. In one room about photography and registration of suspects you can have your own mugshot and fingerprints taken. For a small extra fee you can have these printed out to take home after your visit. I was talked into doing just that but the result shows me with a way too grinning facial expression to look convincing …

While in most parts of the museum photography is not only allowed but even expressly encouraged, this does not apply to the final part of the museum on the top floor under the roof. Here a number of high-profile crime cases are presented – and apparently there are privacy issues with some of the exhibits. So no photography here. The cases will mostly not mean much to non-German visitors, e.g. the case of the blackmailer “Dagobert” and his cunning ways of evading arrest.

But one case that made international headlines will probably be known to many people: the case of the alleged Hitler diaries forged by Konrad Kujau in the early 1980s. The Hamburg-based magazine STERN fell for it, purchased the diaries and made a big sensational story out of it … until the fraud was proven by various means soon after. The case thus became also one of Germany’s biggest journalistic embarrassments. Kujau went to prison but after serving his term he made good money out of now openly selling “genuine Kujau fakes” in a wide range of styles (but no more Hitler diaries). The museum was said to have copies of the forged Hitler diaries on display too and I had been keen to see them with my own eyes – but unfortunately there had recently been a leak in the roof so the diary exhibits had been moved into storage temporarily.

That piece of bad luck aside, though, I found the museum on balance really good, informative as well as entertaining, but without cheap sensationalism. Very well curated indeed. Recommended.

Location: in the north of Hamburg in the district of Alsterdorf, within the grounds of the police academy at the main Hamburg police headquarters compound. Address: Carl-Cohn-Straße 39, 22297 Hamburg.

Google Maps locator: [53.6032, 10.0062]

Access and costs: a bit off the beaten track, ID required; fairly reasonably priced.

Details: It’s a bit of a trek getting there, but it’s doable. The nearest public transport option is bus line 19, get out at the stop Carl-Cohn-Straße and walk the street of that name south until you come to the security gate (ca. 500m). Alternatively you can take the metro U1 to Alsterdorf and walk from there. Note that what on maps looks like the shortest route south of the metro line is partly restricted because you can’t walk through the police HQ grounds but have to walk all the way around it. So it’s actually a bit shorter to first head north from the metro, then turn left into Bilser Straße and then left into Carl-Cohn-Straße.

At the security gate you have to produce some official ID document (passport is best) to be let through (unless you’re younger than 16), and your name may be noted down. But it was quite friendly and uncomplicated when I was there. After that the route to the museum is signposted.

Opening times: Tuesdays to Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed Mondays and on public holidays.

Admission: 8 EUR (which I find quite reasonable for what you get to see)

Time required: I spent over an hour and a half in the museum, even though I only skimmed the older history parts superficially; reading absolutely everything, you can probably spend quite a bit longer in there.

Combinations with other dark destinations: nothing in the immediate vicinity, but the closest other dark site covered on this website is the Fuhlsbüttel memorial. This can be reached from Alsterdorf metro station either by bus line 118 (which isn’t the most frequent, though) to Suhrenkamp and walk the last 500m; or get the metro to Ohlsdorf and walk it from there (a bit longer).

Heading east from Ohlsdorf station, in turn, takes you to the massive Ohlsdorf cemetery, one of the world’s largest, and near the main entrance is also a small museum.

For everything else see under Hamburg in general.

Combinations with non-dark destinations: The area that this museum is located in is anything but touristy, though the Stadtpark, Hamburg’s second largest green area (after Ohlsdorf cemetery), is not far to the south.

But for proper mainstream tourism you’d have to head back south towards the city centre.

See under Hamburg in general.