A new exhibition at the British Museum in London aims to tell the story of Germany with 600 years of memories.

British Museum showcases 600 years of German history

The exhibition, Germany: Memories of a Nation, gathers together significant objects and works of art to piece together a history of the country.

More than 200 items are on display, including a 1953 Volkswagen, Tischbein's famous portrait of Goethe and an example of German clock making from 1589. Items from the Bauhaus movement offer further evidence of Germany's impact on the design world.

The British perception of Germany is often dominated by the Second World War, and overcoming that has played a part in creating the exhibition.

"I think there is a case to made on that," exhibition curator Barry Cook said. "If you go to any bookshop, you see the German history shelves are 95 percent 1933-45; that's basically a true thing and similar in terms of what we might call media attention to German history."

"So there is a case for making an investigation of other aspects of German identity, of the other memories that Germany brings with it, as well as the terrible events of the twentieth century, which can never be avoided and have to addressed, which we do in this exhibition, but there are many other aspects of German history, the memories of the German nation that inform its current state, and perhaps that we know less about."

The exhibition does not offer a chronological history of Germany. Instead the intention is for each exhibit to tell a story that helps to build an understanding of the country. And darker elements of Germany's recent past are also represented.

"We wanted objects that told stories and that did several things," Cook said. "Each object in the exhibition we hope is either very beautiful, or very intriguing in some way or other, but it also has a part to play in the narrative and the many narratives of Germany's many histories, and the diversity of objects reflects the diversity of Germany's history, which is one of fragmentation, decentralization and serious rupture."

The exhibition will run until January 25, 2015.

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