German Tank Museum Munster

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German Tank Museum Munster
Entrance area
Entrance area
Data
place Hans-Krüger-Strasse 33,
29633 Munster
Art
History museum, technology museum
architect unknown
opening 1983
Number of visitors (annually) 113,796 (2015)
management
Website
ISIL DE-MUS-274419

The German Tank Museum Munster (DPM) is a history and technology museum and a joint facility of the city of Munster and the Munster training center of the Bundeswehr  - the central training facility for officers and junior officers of the armored combat troops, the army reconnaissance and anti-aircraft troops of the Bundeswehr. The museum displays tanks , vehicles, weapons, uniforms, equipment and military badges. The time focus is on the 20th century, the regional focus on German history .

The museum emerged from the "teaching collection for application-related training" of Combat Troop School 2 / Armored Troop School Munster, which became an essential part of the exhibition through the contract between the Federal Minister of Defense and the City of Munster in 1983.

concept

According to his own presentation, the museum shows the development of the German armored forces from the First World War to the present day. According to their own statements, in the course of a transformation of the museum concept, an attempt is being made to critically examine the exhibits beyond the history of technology from the perspective of as many historical perspectives as possible. This includes social , economic , political and cultural-historical approaches as well as considerations on the construction of history and the culture of remembrance . The classification of the exhibits in the historical-scientific context is the guideline of the museum operation. The museum is thus committed to the approaches of “ modern military history ” and therefore deals with these general historical aspects as well as “classic” core topics of military history, such as the history of operations, organization and tactics.

Since 2010 the museum has been using the slogan “Technology - Culture - Society” to highlight the close links and interdependence of the various perspectives. For this purpose, a mixture of didactic and museum educational means is used: In addition to the exhibit signs, there are also guided tours, multimedia guides , thematic specialization areas and video stations with historical film material.

An exhibition review in the period , according to June 2012, the museum largely focused on the technology and will cancel Nazi purposes for which issued weapons were used largely. This can be seen in the representation of the Ehrhardt Freikorps , in which the bloody smashing of the Munich Soviet Republic is kept secret, as is the use of the swastika . The battle of Kursk is commented on with inappropriate slogans from the country's point of view . A large part of the display boards still on display today was "created in the eighties by enthusiastic older men who worked for the museum more or less without being asked." The reviewer therefore certified the museum as “Nazi stuff and ignorance.” The entire exhibition area on Kursk was removed from the exhibition in 2016.

Look at the Benjamin quote and the entrance

In May 2016, the museum had a quote from Walter Benjamin, “But if you want peace, talk about war” on the front of the building. Through its municipal and military sponsors, the museum is an institution of the Federal Republic of Germany and thus actively represents the values ​​of this state, which include the rejection of war as an instrument, as far as this is at all possible. To this end, the museum wants to encourage visitors to take a well-founded, critical and independent look at the war. According to its own statements, the museum wants to answer the two most frequent reviews of the museum with the quote: “Nobody needs a tank museum” and “Something like that only glorifies war”. Benjamin's quote "tackles both objections at their roots: We talk about war because we want peace".

Exhibits

The only surviving copy of the Schupo special car type Daimler DZVR 21
View into one of the five exhibition halls

The focus of the collection is on German tanks and vehicles from 1918 to 2003. The collection is not complete, but offers a coherent and informative inventory of vehicles from the Imperial Army, the Reichswehr , the Wehrmacht , the NVA and the Bundeswehr . This inventory is supplemented by some vehicles from foreign armies, which are used at selected points to illustrate certain aspects. Some of the vehicles are drivable. At the event "Stahl auf der Heide", these serve as an attraction for moving demonstrations.

Noteworthy exhibits include a .:

A Tiger I was loaned to the tank museum between 2013 and 2016 .

Outside, a Leopard 1 can be climbed via stairs. A ladder in the tower hatch provides access to the interior of the tank.

The so-called "elements of war" form a thematically self-contained area. This is a hall in which smaller objects are grouped thematically:

  • In the "Iron" section, hand weapons and ammunition from the 17th century to the present are shown and primarily contextualized in terms of technology history .
  • In the “fabric” area, uniforms from the late 19th century to the present are to be considered; these are primarily contextualized in terms of social history .
  • In the “Gold” section, medals and decorations from the late 19th century to the present are presented and primarily contextualized in terms of cultural history .
  • In the “Wood” section, war toys and violent toys from the 20th and 21st centuries are shown and primarily contextualized in terms of everyday history .
Part of the iron range in the elements of war

Special objects are a death mask by Erwin Rommel and the marshal baton of General Field Marshal Günther von Kluge . Erwin Rommel's uniform jacket, which was exhibited as an original for a long time, has now been classified as a fake. The jacket will continue to be shown with a new explanation to draw attention to the problems of counterfeiting in museums.

deals

In its entrance area , the DPM shows changing special exhibitions that cover a wide range of topics and often come from areas that deliberately have little or nothing to do with military history, such as the Siberian Vorkuta prison camp or the exhibition Once Upon a War in the summer of 2009 with pictures by Wiebke Kramer (2010). The house produced its own special exhibitions in 2010 with the title “That transcends the boundaries of reason” for the campaign in the West and in 2012 with the title “Volunteers before!” For recruiting young people for the Bundeswehr .

A multimedia guide from the German Tank Museum Munster

Every visitor can borrow a multimedia guide free of charge to access additional information at designated points. He can explore the museum freely or follow a given route. The information is conveyed audiovisually: In addition to texts read aloud, the visitor sees the text as well as historical images and photographs. There are currently three tours available:

  • In the tour “The History of the Tank” read by Ernst Meincke, the focus is on the overall historical development of the tank weapon, detached from the individual exhibits and embedded in the cultural, social, political and economic history.
  • This tour is also available in English translation.
  • In the tour “Women in War and the Military” read by Franziska Pigulla , a gender- historical perspective is thrown above all on the European military history of modern times .

Groups can book a guided tour of the museum. A museum guide explains the exhibits and the historical development of the tank weapon. The tours are in German, but tours in English are also possible. The museum has a special concept and children's worksheets for children (groups).

Students, schoolchildren and, by arrangement, other people can do internships at the DPM.

The DPM has a small special archive, the contents of which will be made accessible in the future.

1983 founding year of the German Tank Museum

Events

There are various annual events in the German Tank Museum Munster:

  • Stahl auf der Heide: Until 2014, this event was an “Open Day”, the highlight of which are demonstrations of drivable tanks. Since 2015 this event has only been possible by purchasing a ticket in advance. Since 2017, the event has taken place on two days, always on the first weekend in September.
  • Several times a year there are tanks of the month, at which selected exhibits are opened for visitors to allow a look inside the tanks.

Museum dates

The museum has outdoor facilities with exhibition areas, a modern entrance building with the associated five exhibition halls, which take up 7500 m² of the approximately 9000 m² museum area. Several thousand exhibits are shown, including well over 100 large devices (tanks, guns, vehicles).

Since it opened in 1983 to 2010, more than 1.8 million visitors came. With 104,297 visitors in 2013, it is one of the 3.8% of German museums with more than 100,000 visitors per year. In 2019 the museum was awarded the museum seal of approval from the Museumsverband Niedersachsen und Bremen eV.

In 2017 plans for extensive renovations were announced, which should enable a modernized exhibition. This is to be done by demolishing old halls and building a new building. To this end, eight million euros are made available from the federal budget.

carrier

core

The museum is operated by the cooperation of three groups:

  • The Bundeswehr provides the majority of the exhibits in the form of the teaching collection and also ensures their restoration, care and maintenance.
  • The city of Munster is responsible for the actual museum operation and ensures day-to-day operations in organizational and scientific terms.
  • The Association of Friends and Supporters of the German Tank Museum Munster e. V. consists of interested people who are interested in promoting the museum. The association supports the museum with acquisitions and gives suggestions for its further development.

Extended circle

Volunteers support the operation of the museum. The so-called “hobby commanders” help the teaching collection with the maintenance of the vehicles and are available to visitors with their specialist knowledge of individual exhibits on days of action .

The museum also has an advisory board . It is made up of representatives from the city, the Bundeswehr, local politics, civil science and the traditional Bundeswehr associations. The advisory board oversees the development of the museum and makes suggestions.

See also

literature

  • Ralf Raths : German Tank Museum Munster: Catalog. Self-published, Munster 2013.
  • Ralf Raths: From Technical Showroom to Full-fledged Museum: The German Tank Museum Munster. In: Wolfgang Muchitsch (Ed.): Does War Belong in Museums? The Representation of Violence in Exhibitions. (= Edition Museumsakademie Joanneum. Vol. 4). Transcript, Bielefeld 2013, ISBN 978-3-8376-2306-2 , p. 83 ff.
  • Peter Steinmüller: Breaking the fascination of violence , in: VDI nachrichten 12/2020 from March 20, 2020, p. 26f

Web links

Commons : Panzermuseum Munster  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frank Keil: The fight continues. The Second World War is not yet over in the German Bundeswehr Tank Museum in Munster. In: Die Zeit vom June 8, 2012, p. 19 ( online , accessed June 18, 2012).
  2. ↑ German Tank Museum Munster: Detail. In: www.daspanzermuseum.de. Retrieved September 20, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Stahl auf der Heide , on YouTube .
  4. ↑ Ralf Michel: Controversial tank exhibition. Museum director warns against lack of criticism. In: Weser courier. Weser-Kurier Mediengruppe, May 15, 2013, accessed on October 22, 2018 : "The armored car VI" Tiger "has recently been on view in the Munster tank museum"
  5. ↑ Anja Trappe: Tiger leaves the tank museum , Böhme-Zeitung , December 5, 2016. Retrieved on January 4, 2017.
  6. ↑ www2.le.ac.uk .
  7. ^ Panzermuseum-Munster.de ( Memento from October 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
  8. ↑ youtube.com .
  9. ↑ boehme-zeitung.de .
  10. ↑ Tank of the Month - German Tank Museum. Retrieved June 29, 2018 (German).
  11. ↑ Tank Museum breaks record number of visitors ( Memento from January 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), press release from December 6, 2013, accessed on January 4, 2014.
  12. ^ Nine museums awarded a seal of approval by ndr.de on February 6, 2019
  13. ^ Conversion of the Munster tank museum planned by ndr.de on March 9, 2017
  14. ↑ Eight million euros for Panzermuseum Munster at ndr.de on October 11, 2018

Coordinates: 52 ° 59 ′ 13 ″  N , 10 ° 6 ′ 38 ″  E