Station: [1] Welcome


Hello and welcome to the Red Cross Museum Vogelsang – in the middle of the Eifel national park. Before you begin your tour, we’d like to give you some information about this particular location. Our Red Cross Museum – incidentally the third-largest in the world –opened in 2011 to tell the story of the greatest humanitarian movement on earth. In 2019 alone, 17 million people were involved in the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Societies all over the world, either as full-time employees or as volunteers. Incidentally, the society is called the Red Crescent in countries like Bangladesh, Egypt and Iraq. 

We’re in the grounds of the former “Ordensburg Vogelsang”, where the Nazis trained their political leaders from 1936 on. It’s a place with an ugly past, yet now we grapple with human rights issues and international humanitarian law on this site. We have two different exhibitions in two former community houses. Here, at the Humanitarium, which was opened in 2011, the focus is on “Das Abenteuer Menschlichkeit” – “The Humanitarian Adventure.“ The building next door hosts “Die Geschichte einer Idee.” – “The History of an Idea”. 

In the “Humanitarian Adventure” exhibition, we’ll be showing you events from more than a century and a half of Red Cross work and telling you about our world-wide humanitarian operations….  

… We actively confront the values we hold dear. That’s what’s so special. 

Before we start, take a moment to look at the photograph hanging in the ticketing area. In 2013, to celebrate a century and a half of the German Red Cross, 18 hundred volunteers assembled in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and formed a red cross – the famous emblem of our humanitarian movement. 

Please head on in! 

 

 

Foto 1: © Dagmar Trüpschuch / Humanitarium / Bildschirm

Fotos 2-4: © Rotkreuz Museum / Empfang / Bildschirm