The museum collection currently has around 5,000 items – from the fuel nozzle of an A4 rocket and cutlery from the Karlshagen I concentration and work camp to an NVA pilot’s helmet for MiG aeroplanes. Storing them, treating them conservationally or restoring them if necessary and researching them are some of the main tasks of the museum. As well as the items that are stored in the depot on the museum premises, the material remains of the former research stations and settlements are an important part of the museum. They have been systematically mapped and are accessible to the public as a monument landscape.
The items in the museum have been collected since the beginning of the 1990s, but they are not yet completely catalogued. Since 2016, the museum has been professionally logging its collections, in order to initiate a modern collection management system. This project is supposed to permanently secure the inventory and make it accessible as a platform for research. The aim is for external interested parties to be able to research the museum inventory using an online database.
By lending and borrowing individual exhibition pieces, the Historical Technical Museum works in constant cooperation and networks with other museums and collections.