Its current operations include the preservation and care of the museum collections and the continuation of academic and scientific research to encourage learning and understanding between different peoples.

As a result, a reform commission has been set up consisting of representatives from the federal government, several German states, the SPK Presidium and museum directors to implement the dissolution by 2025.

To protect them from Allied bombing, millions of items were evacuated to relative safety in monasteries, castles and abandoned mines around Germany starting in 1941.

[8] The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation began in 1957 by a West German constitutional mandate to find and preserve the collections still stored throughout the former western occupation zones.

From the mid-1960s onward, a series of Modernist buildings were constructed at the Kulturforum to serve as new homes for the collections, including the Gemäldegalerie, the Neue Nationalgalerie and the Berlin State Library.

After Von der Heydt's death in 1874 the building became home to the first Chinese ambassador to Wilhelm II, who decorated its splendid rooms with valuable works of art.

[17] Since 2004, the Foundation sponsors positions for the Voluntary Social Year in Culture (German: Freiwillige Soziale Jahr in der Kultur or FSJ), a program of National Service for teenagers and young adults who meet certain educational requirements.

The scholarships are primarily intended to enable foreign scholars to work at the museums, libraries and archives and make professional contacts with staff.

[18] Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, co-chairs the German/American Provenance Research Exchange Program (PREP) for Museum Professionals for 2017-2019.