Koninklijk Nederlands Legermuseum
The Legermuseum (from Dutch "Leger" = "Army") is the Royal Dutch Army Museum in Delft .
history
The building complex in which the museum is housed was the Armamentarium (the armory ) and dates from 1601.
The Legermuseum maintains a broad collection of militaria from the centuries and offers an overview of military history from prehistory to modern times. The starting point for the museum was the private collection of General FA Hoefer (1850–1938), which was initially housed in De Doorwerth Castle on the Rhine near Arnhem . The museum was called the Nederlandsch Artillerie Museum and opened on August 5, 1913. The donor was only able to maintain the castle and its collection for a short time. His attempts to persuade the Dutch state to take over the collection as the Reichsmuseum failed, but he was able to interest the War Ministry, which took over the collection and handled the costs through the General Staff. However, the minister was not satisfied with this solution and saw to it that a foundation called Het Nederlandsch Legermuseum was set up in 1928 . Hofer became its chairman and remained the museum director until his death in 1938.
In the meantime, Burg De Doorwerth had become too small for the growing collection. Larger objects such as military equipment, carts, wagons or guns were inevitably outside around the property. When the Rhine flooded, the museum's basement stores were flooded and many pieces were damaged. The building also fell into disrepair. At the end of the 1930s, the idea of housing the museum elsewhere emerged. In December 1940, the foundation's management decided to move to Leiden, where the ministry had bought the former plague house to be converted into a museum. Because of the Second World War, renovation and relocation were delayed; the museum in Leiden opened in 1956. Shortly before that, the foundation had changed its name to Het Nederlands Leger- en Wapenmuseum Generaal Hoefer .
At the end of 1959, a building complex in Delft was made available to the museum, the former Armamentarium ( armory ) of the States General , in which the Ministry of Defense has already housed a range of war material, mainly ammunition and artillery left behind by the Germans who withdrew towards the end of the war in 1945 was. However, both locations as museums could not be financed. After the decision was made in favor of the Delft branch, the buildings there were expanded and renovated. In 1986, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands opened the new museum building.
At the beginning of 2013, the museum at its previous location was closed. The collection was merged with that of the Militaire Luchtvaart Museum in the Nationaal Militair Museum in Soesterberg , which opened at the end of 2014 .
Exhibitions
- 2009: Martin Roemers : Relics of the Cold War , then Fotomuseum Den Haag and Willy-Brandt-Haus , Berlin.
literature
- Nadine Barth (Ed.): Martin Roemers: Relics of the Cold War . Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2009, ISBN 978-3-7757-2534-7 .
Web links
- Official website (Dutch, English)