The Jewish Museum Berlin is one of best-known and most prestigious museums in all of Germany, and the building in which it the permanent exhibition is lodged, designed by the architect Daniel Libeskind, has gained worldwide fame. But was this success inevitable? Why was Libeskind´s structure added to the existing former building of the Berlin Court of Appeal? How did the Jewish section of a metropolitan historical museum become a national museum directed toward the history and culture of Jews in Germany? Daniel Bussenius portrays the idea behind this museum and the controversies surrounding its creation in the years 1971 to 2001.