MUNICH, GERMANY 1965
IVA 1965
International Exhibition of Transport and Communication
Internationale Verkehrausstellung

Quick List Info

Dates Open - Open June 25 - October 3, 1965. 101 days. Open from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Attendance - 3,200,000 per the Official Report with 385,000 visitors from foreign nations. It is unknown whether this number represents visitor attendance or visitor plus staff. Other sources list 2.5 million visitors.

International Participants - 36 nations and international participants per Official Report.

Total Cost - Not available. Grounds were rented from a private company with the support of Bavaria and Munich. The Expo Authority erected and financed all the temporary buildings needed. Town improved the road system and built two new parking lots for 8,500 vehicles. Financing was primarily private from proceeds of the exhibition, publicity, space rented, and sale of entrance tickets. Bavarian State and City of Munich provided modest sums to facilitate preparation of IVA on administrative and advertising side. Other funds from Federal government and individual states only for presentation of exhibits, etc. Advance sale of tickets helped with financial equation, but the abnormally bad weather during preparation, and partly during the exhibition, increased the costs.

Site Acreage - 50.2 hectares, 124 acres. Held in Bavaria Park.

Sanction and Type - Bureau of International Expositions Sanctioned Special Expo. Sanction date November 13, 1962. Would be considered a Recognized Expo like those on the 2-3, 7-8 year of each decade today, although held on double the current acreage limit.

Ticket Cost - Advance ticket cost 4 DM ($1). Advanced sale of tickets at the reduced price were particularly successful. 899,909 advance tickets were sold at 4 DM.

Photo top center: Monorail at IVA 1965, 1965, Messe Munchen History. Original source unknown, from Google Images. Column Top: Monorail in color photo, Jean-Henri Manara. Courtesy Flickr. Column Bottom: Postcard Munchen Bayern, IVA 1965. Courtesy acpool.co.uk.

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History of the Event

There had been a long standing habit of hosting Transport exhibitions in Germany, with Munich itself holding national exhibitions on the topic in 1925, prior to Hitler's rage, and 1953, after World War II while a nation split into East and West German halves. Berlin had been host to a BIE sanctioned special expo on the topic, too, in 1957, a smaller event held for only 86 days and drawing one million visitors. Now, while New York held its unsanctioned universal world's fair the year before and during that would overshadow the IVA 1965, and the more important fact that only four years before and three hundred miles away, the Berlin Wall was built and still overshadowed progress of any kind in the Cold War and a separated nation into the East and West halves, West Germany would get its chance again to discuss the world's problems with transportation. Although a member of the Bureau of International Exhibitions since 1930, Germany had not hosting events prior to these special exhibitions. They had been busy on other world matters, ... taking over it.

In 1965, that focus would be corrected as Munich held the IVA World's Fair on Transport. Of course, Germany did it without a focus on a major sector, automobiles, preferring to remain with an eye on mass tranport. They did, however, get the autos into the mix with exhibits on road safety and urban traffic troubles.There were theme halls on those auto problems, the impact of transportation on the people themselves, and, of course, public transportation. There were high speed trains to test out on a track from Munich to Augsburg, running at 200 km per hour. There were life-sized models of rockets to space, predating any potential problems with congestion on the moon. In all seriousness, the International Centre of Aeronautics had a large part in this exhibition, with those models of the present and future, plus a German rocket of World War I past. There were exhibits on water transportation, both inland and maritime, as well.

There was a one hundred and twenty seat cinema, two restaurants, and a popular exhibit that was repurposed from Lausanne in 1964 called the "Circarama." This exhibit by the Swiss Federal Railways projected a circular film to fifteen hundred spectators once every thirty minutes. In total, there were more than thirty theme pavilions and twelve outdoor exhibit fields. More than one hundred trains were exhibited outdoors on 3,500 meters of rails on nine tracks.

Exhibit halls were also devoted to Energy, Tourism, Railroads, and Communications.

Above photo. Map of exhibit layout with Rail exhibits in yellow, 1965. Courtesy Rixke Rail's Archives. Below: Monorail and tower in color photo, Jean-Henri Manara. Courtesy Flickr.


Preparations for opening day had been going on for eighty-four months. The exhibition was opened on June 25, 1965 by Heinrich Lubke, President of West Germany.

Participant and Visitor Perspective

Ted Allen, former President of the B.I.E. - "Odd man out on this list. Last BIE real specialized expo. Short duration on theme of transport - Munich being BMW, etc. Mainly land transport. Good graphics. Good symposia. Specialist audience, open to public."

Participants noted the fact that exhibits had to be placed in theme pavilions per the B.I.E. and not national pavilions was a deterrent for smaller nations to participate. Plan for theme pavilions was eventually determined as positive. Additional deterrance for international participation was the opening of the unsanctioned New York World's Fair for a second year in 1965. Overall, the public liked the IVA 1965 expo in Munich with a survey noting that 93% were pleased, 6% no opinion, and 1% dissatisfied. It was an expo that appealed mostly to men with 71% of all visitors male. 30% of visitors were 19-30, 42% 30-50, and 14% 51-60. Traffic chaos predicted did not occur; nor the breakdown of the hotel and restaurant trade. Parking space was adequate.

BIE Special Expo

International Participants
Nations and Colonies

West Germany, Belgium, Italy, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Formosa, Congo-Kinshasa, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Sweden, USA, Austria and Spain. 31-36 nations listed in various sources. Full list not available.

International Organizations - B.I.C., ELDO, ESRO, EUROCONTROL, FIATA, ICAO, the International Federation of Railway Advertising Companies, The Coal and Steel Pool, UER/EBU, UIC, the UNO committee for the peaceful exploitation of space, and the International Postal Union.

Note: It is sometimes difficult to tell whether certain nations or colonies actually participated in a significant way, either officially or unofficially. Newspaper reports as well as official publications may indicate participation when actual participation did not occur, occurred minimally, or can miss unofficial participation at all. Take the above as a guide, not gospel.

Expo Tidbits
Belgium exhibited railway technology from twelve firms, including animated model of automated stop and train control system. Belgian participation was held on 5,750 square meters of exhibit space under the theme "Belgium - Crossroads of Europe."

The population of Munich in 1960 was 1,055,457. It would grow to 1,311,978 by 1970.

Popular attractions included the IVA Tower with its one hundred foot elevator showing panoramic views to passenger of the exhibition grounds, an amusement park, a cable car, and minirail that ran for 3.5 kilometers.

There were sixty-eight thousand square meters of indoor exhibit space and one hundred and eighty thousand square meters of outdoors exhibit space.

The Munich IVA was the last officially recognized world expo held by Germany until the post East and West Germany unification fair of Hannover World Expo 2000, a large universal fair sanctioned by the BIE that underperformed.

Those in Charge

Dr. Emil Maurer, the manager of the 2nd German National Transport Expo of 1953, proposed the IVA in 1958, but retired in 1964. Helmut Fischer was Executive President of the IVA. Exhibition was held under the auspices of Dr. Heinrich Lubke, President of West Germany.


Sources: "Final Report: International Exhibition of Transport and Communications," Munich 1965, Edited by Verein Verkehrsausstellung, Munchen 1965; London Times; New York Times; Historical Dictionary of World's Fairs; Wikipedia Commons, Bureau of International Expositions, "Transport and Communication: IVA Munich 1965," S. Boulanger, Rixke Rail's Archives; Duetsches Museum Verkehrszentrum; Le Rail, July 1965; Messe Munchen History.

Photo column top: Scene of transport exhibits at Munich IVA 1965, Messe Munchen History. Original source unknown, from Google Images. Middle: President of West Germany, Heinrich Lubke, 1959, German Federal Archives. Courtesy Wikipedia Commons. Bottom: Stamp celebrating the 1965 Transport Exhibition. Courtesy tgw.cz with original source assumed German Federal Government.