The Founding Years
The idea finds many supporters.
In 1903, Oskar von Miller founded the Deutsches Museum von Meisterwerken der Naturwissenschaft und Technik with support from many quarters. The city of Munich donated the Isarinsel as a building site. Prince Ludwig of Bavaria assumed the protectorate. Entrepreneurs and famous scientists from Germany and abroad advised on the construction of the departments. The Bavarian Academy of Sciences donated its valuable collections. Exhibits arrived in Munich from all over the world.
They were exhibited provisionally from 1906 in the old Bavarian National Museum (now the Museum Five Continents) and from 1909 in the former Schwere-Reiter-Kaserne on the site of today's German Patent and Trade Mark Office. With dioramas, demonstrations and experiment stations, the museum's worldwide reputation as a place for entertaining knowledge transfer was already established here.
From the very beginning, the museum also offered a library and an archive, which were to build on the collections and deepen the museum experience. The foundation for today's research museum was laid.