Deutsches Museum München

In the middle of Munich, on an island in the Isar, stands one of the largest technology museums in the world – and in it two aviation exhibitions that many spotters travel to see. The Deutsches Museum shows on four levels how wood-and-fabric constructions became all-metal aircraft, how jet propulsion changed war and then scheduled service, and what goes into a cockpit, an engine or a wing structure today. Important right up front: the aviation halls on Museum Island (Museumsinsel) are not the Flugwerft Schleißheim. Both belong to the Deutsches Museum but are two different sites with collections of their own.

Museum Island or Schleißheim? The distinction

If you search for “Deutsches Museum aircraft,” you quickly end up with two addresses. So that you don’t end up in the wrong place, here are the differences at a glance:

The Flugwerft Schleißheim opened in 1992 as the first branch of the Deutsches Museum and stands on one of Germany’s oldest airfields. There you find the big pieces that would have no room in the city center – from the vertical-takeoff transport to the Eurofighter prototype. The main building, by contrast, tells aviation more as technology and contemporary history, with many originals but also with engines, models and hands-on stations. If you have time, visit both: they overlap less than you might think.

A museum with over a hundred years of history

The Deutsches Museum goes back to the engineer Oskar von Miller. In 1903, he invited people to found a museum association that wanted to make technology and natural science tangible for everyone. The foundation stone for the building on Museum Island was laid in 1906, and the First World War and inflation delayed construction. The building opened on May 7, 1925, the founder’s 70th birthday.

In the Second World War, according to the museum, about 80 percent of the buildings and about a fifth of the exhibits were damaged or destroyed. Exhibition operations restarted from 1947, but the building only reached its prewar floor space in the mid-1960s. Because the structure had long only been patched up, a major future initiative started in 2006, and in 2015 the general renovation of the exhibition building began.

For aviation fans, July 7, 2022, is especially important: on that day, the first modernized construction phase opened with around 20 new or reworked permanent exhibitions. Aviation was part of it – the large aircraft returned to the hall, including the Ju 52 and a Sikorsky helicopter, and were staged anew. Since then, the other half of the building has been renovated. According to the museum, completion is planned for 2028, the year of its 125th anniversary; until then, parts of the building are closed and the entrance is provisionally at a glass building near the Corneliusbrücke.

Historic Aviation: 1918 to 1945

The Historic Aviation exhibition is on level 1 and a gallery in the mezzanine above it. According to the museum, it covers about 2,500 square meters with around 690 objects, including 16 complete aircraft. It tells the first half of the 20th century, when aviation made an enormous technical leap – shaped by two world wars. The main room is divided into the time of the Weimar Republic, the years from 1933 to the end of the war and an overview of aircraft propulsion. The gallery is devoted to model and glider flight, including simulators.

The museum does not shy away from the dark sides. Curator Andreas Hempfer describes the exhibition as a story from the first all-metal passenger aircraft to the V2 – with the striving for performance but also with human suffering and myths surrounding German aviation history. For the Me 262, for example, the museum explains that production in tunnels and forest factories cost the lives of thousands of forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners.

Added to this are propellers, the Fieseler Fi 103 and exhibits and a diorama on rocket development at Peenemünde. Dioramas, by the way, are part of the house’s DNA: Oskar von Miller already relied on such scenes to show technology in its surroundings.

Why the F 13 matters for spotters

The Junkers F 13 looks tiny next to modern jets, but without it aircraft construction would not exist in its present form. It was the first airliner made entirely of metal, with a corrugated light-alloy skin that reappears on the Ju 52. According to the museum, more than 300 were built. Once you have seen the F 13’s corrugated metal up close, you immediately recognize the Junkers family in old photos and at vintage air shows – the article Recognizing vintage aircraft in the sky gives tips.

Modern Aviation: since 1945

One floor down, the Modern Aviation exhibition begins. According to the museum, it occupies levels 0 and 0+ with about 3,130 square meters, around 500 objects, including 10 aircraft and 6 helicopters, and about 30 media stations and hands-on elements each. Curator Robert Kluge deliberately designed the concept so that individual exhibits tell several stories – because even a large hall fills up quickly when you want to show airliners.

The tour on the ground floor leads from the principles of flight through aircraft construction to individual systems and engines. There are themed areas of their own on the Starfighter and on rotorcraft. After that, you go behind the scenes of flight operations before climbing to the mezzanine, where the focus is on the cooperation of air traffic controllers and pilots and on flight safety.

For spotters, this exhibition is often the more rewarding one. The cutaway engines show why a modern widebody jet has so much thicker nacelles than an early Boeing 707: on the slim JT3C, almost all the air flows through the core, while on the JT9D and CF6 – the engines of the first jumbo jets and widebodies – a large part goes around the outside as bypass flow. How to tell engines apart outside on the aircraft is shown in the article Recognizing engines. The story of the first successful jetliner is told in the article on the Boeing 707.

Flight simulator and split-flap display

A highlight for everyone who likes cockpits is the flight simulator. It is based on the twin-engine Diamond DA 42 NG, has an original cockpit with matching instrumentation and surround projection. According to the museum, you can use it to fly to any airport in the world. Experienced staff show various maneuvers at regular demonstrations – which demonstrations run on your day of visit is published by the museum every morning around 9:20 a.m. in the daily program.

A small detail with great recognition value also hangs in the hall: the former split-flap display of Stuttgart Airport. Older spotters still know the clatter of those display boards from every terminal; according to the museum, 1,770 individual modules were checked and cleaned for the exhibition. If you like to fly yourself rather than just photograph, the article Getting started with flight simulation shows the way to your own setup.

Planning your visit

According to the museum, Museum Island is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., last admission is at 4:30 p.m.; the building is closed on a few days a year. By S-Bahn you go to Isartor, by U-Bahn to Fraunhoferstraße. During the renovation, you’ll find the entrance at a multi-story glass building near the Corneliusbrücke, and the coat check is on level 1. Prices and closing days change – check them shortly before your visit on the museum’s website.

Photography in the aviation halls

In the hall you have no sun, no heat shimmer and no fence – but little distance, mixed light and many visitors. The large exhibits stand on pedestals or hang from the ceiling. This gives appealing perspectives from below and from the mezzanines but rarely the classic side-on shot.

A wide-angle or standard lens is more important here than a long telephoto. Which focal lengths suit tight situations is explained in the article Wide-angle and standard lenses for spotting. Set the white balance manually instead of letting the automatic jump between daylight and hall lighting, and work with a wide aperture and higher ISO. The strongest subjects are often details: the corrugated metal of the F 13, the cockpit glazing of the Ju 52, the inlets of the cutaway engines.

Combining the museum, Flugwerft and airport

For aviation fans, Munich is a trio. The Deutsches Museum is in the center, the Flugwerft Schleißheim in the north and Munich Airport in the northeast in the Erdinger Moos. Managing all three in one day is ambitious – two days are better: one for Museum Island and the city, one for Schleißheim in the morning and live traffic in the afternoon.

At the airport, from the visitors’ hill (Besucherhügel) you see the current fleet of Lufthansa. Its name goes back to Deutsche Luft Hansa of 1926, whose initial equipment included the F 13 and whose standard aircraft in the 1930s was the Ju 52. How to plan your spotting day in Munich is in the plane spotting guide for Munich.

More aviation museums in Germany

If the Junkers exhibits have gripped you, the Technikmuseum Hugo Junkers in Dessau, at the former site of the Junkers works, is worthwhile. The Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin is the second large universal technology museum with a strong aviation department. Large airliners you can walk through are at the Technik Museum Speyer. And if you want to lend a hand yourself, the article Volunteering in aviation museums shows ways to do so. An overview of further sites is given in the article Aviation museums in Germany.

Conclusion

The aviation halls of the Deutsches Museum are no substitute for a day at the fence but its foundation. Here you see where the construction methods you photograph today come from: the all-metal aircraft of the F 13, the jet propulsion of the Me 262, the path from the slim turbojet to the fat turbofan. Since 2022, the exhibitions have been presented in a modern way and also openly name the dark sides of aviation history.

Above all, remember the distinction: Museum Island shows around 30 aircraft in a large technology museum, the Flugwerft Schleißheim over 70 on a real airfield. If you visit both, you will have seen a very broad cross-section of German aviation history in Munich.