The Story of a Bremen Icon The World Comes to Visit ÜBERSEE in Bremen

What stands today as a classic museum building right next to Bremen’s train station actually began as an exhibition: The Northwest German Trade and Art Exhibition in Bremen’s Bürgerpark drew 1.2 million visitors to its halls between May and October 1890. At the time, goods from all over the world were displayed in national pavilions – along with animals, plants, and dioramas from overseas. It wasn’t long before the question arose: Couldn’t this be turned into a museum?

The first phase of construction was completed as early as 1896, with the second phase following in 1908. On January 15, 1896, what is now the Übersee-Museum opened its doors as the “Municipal Museum of Natural History, Ethnology, and Commercial Studies.” Founding director Hugo Schauinsland presented exhibitions designed to appeal to both scientists and interested laypeople alike, which for the first time depicted both humans and animals in their natural environments. His guiding principle: “The whole world under one roof.” The museum quickly became a major attraction, gaining fame far beyond Bremen’s borders – and remains so to this day.

Bremen Residents Get Involved Collect & Store

But before museum visitors could gain their first impressions of nature, culture, or trade in and with foreign countries, numerous Bremen citizens and merchants, as well as Sparkasse Bremen, provided the necessary funding. The collection, comprising some 1.2 million objects, also owes its existence to this commitment. This close connection has endured ever since and helps the museum live up to its reputation as an educational and recreational institution with a supraregional character – whether through the collection, preserving, and researching cultural heritage and specimens of flora and fauna, or by presenting content on natural history, ethnology, and trade in permanent and special exhibitions.

You can find the chronological overview of the history of the Übersee-Museum here as a PDF for download – coming soon:

View of a historical diorama — The lion group was destroyed during the Second World War.

Collection Stories Many Become One

With the founding of the museum, the many different collections also found a new home. For whether they were the natural history collection of the “Gesellschaft Museum,” the collections of the “Anthropological Commission,” the “Natural Science Association,” or the “Historical Society of the Artists’ Association” – by 1878 at the latest, they were all in public ownership and were brought together as the “Municipal Collections for Natural History and Ethnography.” They formed the foundation of the Übersee-Museum’s collection.

Early Years: the Schauinsland Era

The World Under One Roof: In 1887, zoologist Hugo Schauinsland was appointed director of these “Municipal Collections of Natural History and Ethnography.” He was the founding director, a leading figure, and a visionary during the early years. During his more than four decades in office, the museum became Hugo Schauinsland’s life’s work.

He presented exhibitions that appealed to both scholars and interested laypeople alike, and which, for the first time, depicted humans and animals in settings close to nature. On January 15, 1896, what is now the Übersee-Museum opened under his direction. Through a combination of ethnology, natural history, and economic history – the “Bremen Model” – it offered visitors, for the first time, insights into the nature and culture of distant countries and continents through dioramas and display groups.

The whole world under one roof.
Hugo Schauinsland
The Founding Director’s Vision and Credo

Losses and Revolt From a Total Loss
to Modernity Breaking New Ground

With the outbreak of World War II, the Übersee-Museum closed. Hugo Schauninsland was forced into retirement against his will on September 30, 1933. To protect the collection from air raids, parts of it were stored in the basement or sent to the surrounding area. A bombing raid on December 20 destroyed the first atrium; the building was reduced to a skeleton. Although the Übersee-Museum was subsequently deemed a “total loss,” part of the exhibitions was able to reopen as early as 1949. By the mid-1950s, the museum was once again among the city’s nationally renowned attractions.

However, some temporary arrangements at the site remained in place for decades. From 1976 to 1978, the building was closed for renovation work. By the time it reopened in 1979, the museum had also undergone a thematic renewal – the human figures were removed, connections between economics and ecology were to be highlighted, and the museum was to become a place of encounter.

Unique in Europe The Übersee-Museum Understanding the Distance

Internal and external changes have marked the history of the Übersee-Museum since the late 1990s. The museum’s transformation into a foundation under public law, the establishment of an Executive Board and a Supervisory Board, and the opening of Europe’s first exhibition storage facility were followed, beginning in 2001, by a fundamental overhaul of the museum’s permanent exhibitions.

The results are the exhibitions “Asia – A Continent of Contrasts,” “What makes the World go round,” and the permanent exhibitions “Africa” and “America.” In 2025, the new exhibition “The Blue Continent – Islands in the Pacific” opened. In the special exhibition “Tracking the past,” the museum critically examines its own history and the collection items from the German colonial era. Thus, the museum continues to follow two guiding principles – “The World Under One Roof” and “Diversity That Inspires.”