Deutsches Pressemuseum im Ullsteinhaus

The Deutsches Pressemuseum im Ullsteinhaus stands in Berlin’s Tempelhof district, inside the Ullsteinhaus, a brick-expressionist landmark built in the 1920s. The building itself is a protected monument, its red-brick façade marking the transition from imperial Berlin to the modern city. Inside, around 1,000 square metres of space house exhibits tracing the evolution of the press from the late 19th century to today. The museum treats journalism as the ‘fourth estate’, showing how news is gathered and how its conditions of production shape public life.

The collection includes Robert Lebeck’s ‘Kiosk’ archive, a donation of roughly 30,000 photographs taken between 1893 and 1973. These images document the daily press trade, from street-corner kiosks to editorial offices. A new research centre, supported by the Free University of Berlin and Humboldt University, will catalogue the archive and open it to scholars. In 2013 the museum joined the nationwide programme ‘1933 – Destroyed Diversity’, linking its holdings to the Nazi seizure of the press.

Visitors walk through rooms that combine original artefacts with modern displays. Desks, typewriters and early printing presses illustrate technical change, while wall panels explain how political events reshaped newspaper ownership. The museum’s foyer often hosts small exhibitions on topical media issues. Outside, the Ullsteinhaus’s stepped gables and tall windows recall the architecture of Weimar Berlin, framing views across Tempelhof’s quiet streets.