Before the National Socialist regime took control of Germany’s art institutions in 1933, relationships between the restoration discipline and those institutions had started to change. From unification in 1870/71 until the end of the Wilhelmine period in 1918, the practice of conservation and restoration had become more established. It was reflective of new philosophical concerns connected to the objectives and enquiries of art history and the expansion of museum audiences. These processes intensified during the Weimar period as museums continued to broaden their collections, particularly with holdings of international avant-garde works, and experimented with new philosophies of restoration treatment, methods of scientific investigation, and new materials. This period, from unification to the eve of totalitarianism, firmly cemented conservation and restoration as an inseparable element of the museum presentation of cultural objects in German institutions.