"We want to make contemporary history comprehensible."

The German collective memory is hidden behind a metal door, right next to an underground parking garage entrance. There, the depot of the House of History in Bonn begins. Heavy-duty shelves are lined with television cabinets from past decades; on another shelf, a miniature of the beach chair from the 2007 G8 summit in Heiligendamm sits next to the sign for the WDR television program " Zimmer frei! " (Room Available!). Before that, you pass the lottery machine that drew the winning numbers for decades. If you want to speak with the person who oversees all of this, you have to go to another corridor, a few floors above the depot. Here sits Harald Biermann, the director of the House of History.