Storm Surges on the North Sea Coast

A glance at the collections of the Deutsches Historisches Museum reveals the immense variety of objects that are related to different epochs and topics of German history. They tell stories of our past or current lives, of famous or often unknown persons and events. In our new blog series #Umweltsammeln (#Environmentcollecting) we present various objects that have to do with the topic of “environment”. Unexpected questions raised by the heads of the different collection sections open new perspectives on historical objects and often reveal startling parallels to questions that deal with our current world.
Dr Sven Lüken, head of the militaria collection, uses one of the earliest maps in the DHM collection, which shows changes in the seashore brought about by storm surges, to highlight the perception of catastrophic storm surges from the Middle Ages to the present.