It is 25 years since the Berlin Wall fell and a new Germany was born. In the last quarter of a century the country has seen an unprecedented opening up of archives and a programme of national education and much public debate about the different inheritances of East and West Germany. There has also been an unprecedented building of monuments marking the horrors of the recent past. But what are the memories that German citizens bring to their new state? What, in short, does the world look like if you are German?

At the forefront of that memory is the Third Reich and the Holocaust.

But there is more than that, and one of the ways that German history is not like other European histories is that Germans consciously use it as a warning to act differently in the future. As the historian Michael Stürmer says, “for a long time in Germany, history was what must not be allowed to happen again”. This is very different from Britain or France, where most public engagement with history, in terms of monuments and memorials, is to honour valour and heroism, with little public recognition of any wrongdoing, or of follies that might have led to the wars in which the valour had to be demonstrated. What is striking about German war memorials is that they look forward not back – a characteristic clearly visible in their parliament building.

The historic Reichstag was burnt out in 1933, with the fire blamed on the communists and used to advantage by the Nazis. During the war it was badly damaged, then occupied by the Russians. After reunification the decision was made to restore it, but the marks of the 1933 fire, as well as graffiti made by Soviet soldiers, were left untouched, as a reminder to legislators that if you get things as wrong as Germany did then the consequences are unimaginably terrible. An MP travelling to the Reichstag today will pass not only the Holocaust memorial but also memorials to the killing of homosexuals, disabled people and Roma. When they get to the building, they find it topped by a huge glass dome, to which the public have access. So not only do you have an emblem of a transparent legislature, but the public can literally exercise oversight over their government – a direct reversal of the situation under both the Nazis and the Stasi.

In effect the building is a meditation on different aspects of history. I can’t think of another country in the world that lives so closely with the acutely uncomfortable reminders of its past in order to help it act more wisely in future.

In making our radio series, British Museum exhibition and book we have tried to look at objects that evoke memories of which pretty well all Germans can say “this is part of me”. Some are obvious, such as the Gutenberg Bible. Every German knows that Germany invented printing and, in that sense, made the modern world. But we have also tried to focus on elements that the British public might not be so familiar with, as well as areas of German history about which there is still a reticence in Germany. People talk about the Holocaust very honestly and fully, but subjects such as the huge civilian losses from allied bombing raids are little discussed, unlike in this country. Yet it remains a potent memory.

It has always been the British Museum’s job to present the history we need in order to make sense of now. Germany is the European state we most need to understand if we are going to comprehend both Europe, and the world.