After the success of an exhibition on Prussia, which was shown in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in 1981, the then Governing Mayor of (West) Berlin, Richard von Weizsäcker, commissioned four prominent historians – Hartmut Boockmann, Eberhard Jäckel, Hagen Schulze and Michael Stürmer – to prepare a memorandum, which appeared in January 1982 under the title Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin.

Multi-perspective perceptions aimed to encourage an understanding of the viewpoint of others in order to allow for a high level of reflection on history and culture in a time of the internationalisation of everyday life and the globalisation of work and commerce.

On 28 July 1987, the partnership agreement was signed between the Federal Republic of Germany and the state of (West) Berlin concerning the establishment of the temporary trusteeship of the German Historical Museum as a private limited company.

In the course of the construction of the new adjacent museum hall by I. M. Pei between 1998 and 2003, glass roofing was once more installed above the Schlüterhof, the inner courtyard with the masks by Andreas Schlüter.

The new building by I. M. Pei with a surface area of 2,700 m2 (29,000 sq ft) on four floors, and structurally engineered by Leslie E. Robertson Associates, was opened for temporary exhibitions in 2003.

The Permanent Exhibition German History in Images and Artefacts was inaugurated in the Zeughaus by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel on 2 June 2006.

As of 30 December 2008 the DHM assumed the legal form of a Public Law Foundation of the Federal Government (Stiftung öffentlichen Rechts des Bundes).

The public reference library is located behind the Zeughaus in the museum's administrative building, which had belonged to the Prussian credit union Prussische Central-Genossenschaftskasse from 1899 to 1945 and later to the GDR state-run company Minol.

[2] Its main aim is to bring together historical and film-historical questions in a programme that is marked by film series to accompany exhibitions as well as thematic retrospectives.

Image reproduction rights for commercial purposes are managed by the DHM picture archive, which charges industry-standard usage fees.