100 years of making phone calls on the go

The digital exhibit tells the story of the mobile phone since 1926 in seven chapters—from train and car phones to smartphones. The pop-up exhibition complements this with selected historical mobile phones.

Pop-up Exhibition: 100 Years of Mobile Phone Communication

On January 7, 1926, a technological milestone was reached: For the first time, people made a phone call on a moving train on the Hamburg–Berlin line. The radio connection between a cable laid along the tracks and an antenna on the train roof only reached a few meters, but it was considered a sensation—and marked the beginning of what has now been a 100-year history of mobile telephony.

Another major step followed in 1958 when the German Federal Post Office established the first nationwide mobile network in West Germany with its public mobile land radio service. From 1988 onward, portable phones finally made phone calls independent of vehicles – the "mobile phone" was born. Today, making calls is just one of many functions of a smartphone, but the core purpose remains the same: staying connected on the go.

• The pop-up exhibition opens on January 7, 2026, in Berlin and will be on display for approximately five months.
  
• The digital presentation will be available from January 7, 2026, via the websites of the participating museums.