BERLIN - The Deutsches Historisches Museum presents Arthur Szyk: Drawing Against National Socialism and Terror, an exhibition of the German Historical Museum in cooperation with the Arthur Szyk Society, Burlingame, USA. Curated by Katja Widmann and Johannes Zechner. Arthur Szyk (1894–1951) was one of the most memorable political caricaturists and illustrators during World War II. With his artist’s pencil he fought against the National Socialist regime, the NAZI's, and its Axis partners. His pieces appeared in high circulation American magazines and daily newspapers.

With his drawings and the active involvement in relief organizations, he sought ceaselessly to direct the public’s attention to the mass murder of the European Jews. The First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt referred to him as a “one-man army”. The exhibition provides a representative cross section of Szyk’s oeuvre for the first time in Germany, focusing in particular on his political drawings. On exhibition 29 August through 4 January, 2009.

In 1939 Adolf Hitler gave orders to have the army museums in Berlin, Munich and Dresden taken over by the Wehrmacht. From this time on the spirit of German heroism, such as the National Socialists understood it, was propagated in the Zeughaus. Parades and commemorations in the open courtyard were part of the German war propaganda until 1944.

In 1944/45 the building was severly damaged by bombs and grenades. In 1945 the Allied Military Command of the city closed down the "War Museum Zeughaus". The reconstruction of the building went on from 1948 to 1965.

From 1952 to 1990 the "Museum for German History", founded by the Central Committee of the SED (Socialist Unity Party), was located in the Zeughaus. The aim of the museum was to convey the Marxist-Leninist concept of history. As the central museum of history in the German Democratic Republic it undertook extensive activities to collect and display historical material. In September 1990 the museum was dissolved by the last government of the GDR. Its collections and properties, including the Zeughaus, were transferred into the hands of the German Historical Museum, founded three years earlier by the Federal Republic of Germany and the Land Berlin.

Enlightenment and communication are the central precepts of the conception, which also states: The museum shall in particular strive to help the citizens of our country to gain a clear idea of who they are as Germans and Europeans, as inhabitants of a region and members of a worldwide civilization.

The future permanent exhibition, which will comprise some 10,000 square meters of exihibition space on the three floors of the Zeughaus, will contain artefacts and documents of German history that can be seen in as varied a frame of reference as possible. The basic principle for the permanent display will be to exhibit in three different types of rooms, in which German history will be presented within its European context and its regional diversity. From the 9th century to the present, the political, social, and economic aspects of German history will be depicted in reference to the history of Europe.