Military Museums - Germany

JoeArthur

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I wrote an article for Pete and his View From the Trenches. It was on military mueums that I had visited in 2018.

He edited it slightly (no big deal) and I would like to throw it out to the wisdom of crowds. Did I miss anything? Here is the section on Germany:

Germany:

The Deutsches Panzermuseum Germany

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Tank_Museum


Did I have fun in this place. I spent a whole day there and was considering going back for another day.

I parked up and the first thing I heard at 8.50 in the morning was the sound of gunfire. Then looking around I saw a lot of Bundeswehr vehicles – there was even a coach. Turns out just down the road is a big military base which was holding exercises on the day of my visit – hence all the activity:


Us Brits occupied that base till 1993. The locals now know the area near the tank museum as the “Leo park” or “Puma park” as most of the German AFV’s are parked there. It is was also a WWII chemical weapons production and testing site which produced or tested for the Nazi war machine the following:

“An extensive range of tests were carried out on a wide variety of shells of various calibres, as well as on mines, projectiles, bombs (up to 500kg) and spray equipment. The substances tried included arsenic oil, hydrogen cyanide, mustard gas, Tabun, Sarin, cyanogen chloride, phenacyl chloride, Adamsite, Aeroform, Excelsior (10-chlor-9,10-dihydroacridarsin) and many others”

Nobody tells you that whilst you are visiting though.

The reason that the tank museum is next to a military base was explained by a museum tour guide. In Germany, it is illegal to own a tank. Why? Because under German law the armour is considered to be a weapon. If you drive down the road in it the police cannot stop you so they are classed as weapons. You can keep a tank if you remove the armour – but then it is not a tank. Which is why this blokes tank was seized:


All military museums in Germany are therefore owned and on or adjacent to Bundeswehr bases.

Where to start? It has a Tiger that you walk up to and think “that does not look right”. You then read the description to find out that it is a plastic 1:1 model built to replace the “FrankenTiger” that had been on loan from an individual. That Tiger was built from the parts of six Tigers to make one complete one. The owner had removed it to try and get it running. The museum made the decision to replace it with a plastic model.

You are allowed to touch all the exhibits, just not sit on them or climb on them – but not this one. It is fenced of.

It is not the only fake there – their WWI tank is a replica. That one is metal though.

The descriptions were brutally honest. So much so that I went and bought the museum guide – which is something I never do. For instance here is the description of the Panzer III:

“Even though the tank became increasingly obsolete, it made up, with the Panzer IV, the backbone of the German Armour Corps for a long time. Not least because the German industry made high profits from the tank’s continued production”

I just thought that was refreshingly honest. I wonder how much the UK armaments industry made from producing some of the junk that they did………..if anyone knows who made the most money in the UK from arms manufacture, or knows of a good book / link, feel free to let me know.

The rarest things in the collection is probably the Brummbär and Sturmtiger. There are three Brummbär in the world, the others being in the Russian Kubinka museum and in the Fort Sill Field Artillery Museum, Oklahoma, USA.

There is one other Sturmtiger in the world – in Russia at Kubinka. Bovington has a Sturmtiger barrel, the rest of the tank was scrapped – something that they now no doubt regret. According to the museum guide Bovington wanted the Munster Sturmtiger for their exhibit displaying all the Tiger models. The Germans were worried about Brexit and getting the tank back and refused. He did point out that if Bovington had offered to get it running for them they could have had it for three years as a thank you – Bovington did not want to do that deal.

The Munster Sturmtiger had been seized by US forces and removed to the US. They very nicely decided to give it back when the German tank museum was created. Germany was now a NATO member so they had to return some of the stuff. The Federal Republic of Germany (FDR / West Germany) received a lot of stuff from the Americans – the “meat-chopper” half-track was one of the items given and is now on display at the museum.

Britain also returned some tanks:


Sweden gave them the Panther on display.

It appears to be a form of “tank diplomacy”. Like the Chinese giving giant pandas away today.

Today the museum contains about 25 WWII tanks.

The museum has guides who run regular tours. The one that I had was excellent. He explained that the military exercises were in fact the German military showing off to journalists / foreign military. He was going to do a tour of the museum for an Israeli army general the following day.

He took us through all the halls of the museum. The newer tanks were interesting. He was explaining the balls on chains hanging from the back of the turret on one of the tanks was to enable the tank commander to “sweep” the rear deck clean of stuff like bundles of explosives that are placed there during urban combat. After Afghanistan the tanks are turning into urban warfare vehicles.

One other interesting thing he states was that the Israeli tanks are all required to have access via the rear. That was a result of one battle where the tanks were dug in and the Israeli army took heavy losses in men who were trying to resupply the tank through the turret. There are now doors in the back of the tank:


The Israeli army found a new use for these doors – reversing the back of a tank through a building, opening the doors and letting troops out to rescue hostages.

The other thing the museum highlights is that it was the Russians who developed the smooth bore barrel gun design now used around the world in the 1960’s.

The exhibits go up to the Puma prototype that is in use by the Bundeswehr today.


It has a rather large Gatling gun on the top which cannot take out a tank. It will however cause so much damage to optics and other exposed equipment that the tank has to drive back for repairs. “Mission killed” as the guide put it.

Great museum, great explanations which are in English, good tour guides. What’s not to like?

I asked the tour guide what else I should see and he suggested:

The Scientific Collection Of Defense Engineering Specimens, Koblenz, Germany


The best three euros that I have spent in a long time. It is of course attached to a German military base – they take your ID details when you pay the entrance fee.

Think of the displays at the Royal Military College of Science Shrivenham. It is all about the science of how to kill people and how that has developed down the ages from throwing rocks at each other, to pointy things on sticks to today’s missiles.

Being about the engineering / science rather than have a tank on display you have a tank cut in half so that you can see how it works. No Panther but the gearbox of a Panther is displayed alongside that of a T34 – presumably to show how you should do it.

Everything is also in working order – nothing has been decommissioned. In the main building:

Ground Floor cannon / artillery

Second Floor artillery

Third Floor mortars

Fourth Floor communications / range finders (not that interesting)

Fifth Floor hand guns from muskets to the present day

Then there was a big hangar with tanks / helicopters / air planes / missiles – all the big stuff.

There are many pictures here:

http://www.primeportal.net/museums/ulrich_wrede/wts_koblenz_031408/index.php?Page=1

The Zeppelin Field, Nuremberg


Otherwise known as the Nazi party rally grounds.


Not strictly a museum, but the site of the only remaining examples of Nazi architecture. You probably know the Zeppelin field from this footage:


Where US forces blew up the Swastika emblem to let the Germans know that there was to be no more of that thank you very much.

You can stand in the spot Hitler gave his speeches from – it is not fenced off. The great thing is that the area where the Nazi’s strutted their stuff is now used to hold pop concerts. Hitler would not be amused.

The one thing that made me smile was that it was built by an architect – Albert Speer. Who used limestone for its pure white look. Unfortunately limestone is porous so when the winter hits (minus 20 degrees C) the water in the limestone freezes and the rock crumbles. So much for architects and so much for the 10,000 year Reich.

The whole lot is crumbling and the Nuremberg city council are facing the awkward choice of do they maintain it / or let it crumble to dust? Being rather embarrassed about having such a reminder of their Nazi past they have gone for let it crumble to dust but put a bit of concrete here and there to make it look like we are doing something.

As you approach the area you cannot help but see the Congress Hall. This is the other piece of Nazi architecture. It is huge. Vast. It looks like a modern version of the colosseum in Rome and that is what inspired it. This was not going to be the largest building built on this site – bigger ones were planned.

It has survived virtually intact other than a few scars from shells because during the war there was no reason to bomb it. Unlike Nurenberg itself which was bombed to virtual destruction. Nurenberg city centre has been rebuilt and is now a recreation / copy of what was there. The Germans have done that a lot – presumably they did not want to lose their history and so decided to replace what they lost by building copies.

Walking round the exterior there were a few scars from what I am guessing were tank shells. Nothing was crumbling because this time the architect, who was not Speer, used granite, which is non-porous.

Under the outer arches there were homeless people taking shelter. Inside the building is now the home of the Nuremberg symphony orchestra and also a museum:

The Documentation Center Nazi Party Rallying Grounds


It has a permanent exhibition "Fascination and Terror" (Faszination und Gewalt) which studies the causes, coherence, and consequences of National Socialism. No weapons to be seen. I did not see anything / learn anything that I did not already know. A bit of a disappointment……..
 

JoeArthur

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Excellent!
Thanks!

And many thanks for letting me know about the Dresden museum - I shall put it on my list of places to visit 👍

It must be Brexit - their website has no English translation? Does the museum display English translations?

Ever been to the Eagle's Nest?


Not a museum but maybe worth a look if I am ever passing? Just to have a beer...........
 

WuWei

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There is one other Sturmtiger in the world – in Russia at Kubinka. Bovington has a Sturmtiger barrel, the rest of the tank was scrapped – something that they now no doubt regret. According to the museum guide Bovington wanted the Munster Sturmtiger for their exhibit displaying all the Tiger models. The Germans were worried about Brexit and getting the tank back and refused. He did point out that if Bovington had offered to get it running for them they could have had it for three years as a thank you – Bovington did not want to do that deal.

The Munster Sturmtiger had been seized by US forces and removed to the US. They very nicely decided to give it back when the German tank museum was created. Germany was now a NATO member so they had to return some of the stuff. The Federal Republic of Germany (FDR / West Germany) received a lot of stuff from the Americans – the “meat-chopper” half-track was one of the items given and is now on display at the museum.
A few decades back, there also was a Sturmtiger at the Auto- und Technikmuseum Sinsheim. Did they lose it?
It's also a museum I can recommend. They have some WW2 and other military stuff, but also a lot of cars, trains, planes and the world's largest steam organ. They are also the only museum in the world that has one of the Concordes AND a Tu-144. You can enter both of them.

 

JoeArthur

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Did they lose it?
Cannot see it listed on their website:


I think they must have moved it to Munster.

Many thanks for the new museum to visit 👍
 

WuWei

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I contacted the museum in Sinsheim. They indeed don't have the Sturmtiger any more. It was a loan, and they can't tell me who the owner is.
It might have moved from Sinsheim to the Koblenz and from there to somewhere else, so it is a reasonable assumption that it's the one in Munster now.
 

von Marwitz

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I contacted the museum in Sinsheim. They indeed don't have the Sturmtiger any more. It was a loan, and they can't tell me who the owner is.
Maybe some pensioner claimed it back after having swept his basement... ;)

von Marwitz
 
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