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I have been to the Imperial War Museum in London few days ago, and left somewhat perplexed; this is how I ended up starting this thread.

On my part, I would perhaps mention the Museum of War in Riga, Latvia: it contains interesting sections on the Latvian Waffen SS units.

Hi there,

It's interesting to hear your comments on the Imperial War Museum. I haven't been there for about twenty years. I remember finding it pretty impressive way back then, and so I'm curious to know in what way it has become perplexing! It I were to visit it again now, maybe I too would be bemused.

The Bovington Tank Museum, about which others have written on this site, is well worth a visit, though of course it's not restricted to World War Two; it covers the whole period of tank warfare.

The Red Army Museum in Moscow is also impressive, at least it was impressive ten years ago...where else have you visited?

Best,
Peter H.

The battle of Normandy museum at Bayeux in France is very good.Actually there are quite a few good museums in Normandy. I don't know why!

If you like to see battlefield relics and german vehicles, then go to the Automuseum at Bad Oeynhausen, west of Hannover Germany.

If you like aircraft, try the RAF museum at Hendon in North London.

The Ardennes is packed with good museums to. Bastogne or La Gleize for example. Also the Dutch Overloon museum and the Airborne museum in Oosterbeek are pretty good to.

I'm planning on visiting the D-Day Museum in New Orleans next March (Oh, and I'll be sure to bring some beads ). Has anyone else been there yet?

I would agree with Karlowitz the Bayeux Museum is quite good its a few years since I as there but was impressed.
The Panzer Museum at ( Will rememebr the yowns name in about 5 hours time ...bang out of the blue!!) on the Loire is excellent .
RAF Museum is always worth while.
In Normandy some nice small museums to be seem probably one of the best areas to visit...would like to go back this year .

Peter H. wrote:I'm curious to know in what way it has become perplexing!

When navigating across the Museum rooms the usual way, the last section you arrive at is the huge Holocaust exhibition. The result is that all impressions you might have collected on lower floors, when watching the Jagdpanthers, the Hurricanes, the uniforms, the medals, the maps etc, are wiped out by the horror of Holocaust, and it is exactly this horror you are overwhelmed with when leaving the building.

Does the Holocaust section belong there? Is it a perfectly well engineered marketing of political correctness or rather a smell of what all these uniforms and barrels really stand for? Being an aspiring militarist, I suffered having my balls kicked. Want emotions? Here they are!

Patrick:

I have been to the D-Day Museum in New Orleans 5 times. I find it will take you between two or three hours to go thru the exhibits. If you read everything and watch all the videos it could take you 5 or 6 hours. I find it very informative and enjoy it very much. I took my 14 year old son last visit and he is hooked on it. He wants to go back. I find the Gift Shop has a good selection of books, videos, toys, etc. What I like to do is to find one of the volunteer workers , who fought in World War II , and talk to them. On my last visit I talked with a gentleman who was in a Tank Battalion and he talked to me and my son for almost an hour. I think you will enjoy the Museum.

Regards,

Wally

I was the Anne frank Haus earlier this year with my daughter (13) who will have to address such issues in her education in the next year or two.
We went towards evening when tere would be less peole around , the silence was over whelming.
Like revisiting a crime scene.

Servus,
Years ago I went to the German Army Infantry museum on the training area at Hammelburg. They have some of the original regimental flags that were saved from the Tannenberg memorial before the Germans blew it up in 1944. They also had a fully operational Kettenkrad and I got to see a Goulaschkanone.
All in all a good time was had by all.

Helmut wrote:German Army Infantry museum on the training area at Hammelburg

Thanks! Is it accessible for public or one has to join the Bundeswehr to see it?

Helmut wrote:They have some of the original regimental flags that were saved from the Tannenberg memorial before the Germans blew it up in 1944.

To my knowledge, the Tannenberg Denkmal in Hohenstein was blown up (partly, just the entrance tower and the mausoleum tower) on the night of Jan 20/21, 1945, few days before the Soviets arrived there. The rest was allowed to be dismantled by the local population; Denkmal stones carefully selected in 1930s later on contributed greatly to the erection of many local byres and pigsties. What has not been dismantled was blown up by the army, I think in early 1960s. Some stones from the Mausoleum were used to build the Central Party House and the Red Army monument in Allenstein (now dismantled as well). The heroes' oaks, so watchfully planted in late 1930s, are still there, now huge and wild; they give shadow to commuters heading for the seaside and comforting themselves during the long drive.

I visited the place this summer. The debris left, hidden among the wild oaks, is difficult to find. But the whole thing might be even more impressive than the original Tannenberg Denkmal.

4444 wrote:

Helmut wrote:German Army Infantry museum on the training area at Hammelburg

Thanks! Is it accessible for public or one has to join the Bundeswehr to see it?

When I was there back in the '70s, I was a US Soldier. I would think that if the Panzermuseum at Munster was open to the public, then Hammelburg would be also but after 9/11, who knows.
BTW. The Bundeswehr has a combat in cities training area there called BONNLAND. It is a small town that was evacuated and taken over by the BW. The town's claim to fame is that on the outskirts of the town is where the last vehicles of TF Baum were knowcked out during the famous raid on Hammelburg at the end of WWII.

There are many very good WW2-related museums to visit and not all are military collections. The city museum in Warsaw's old town square really documents the brutality of the German occupation. And, of course, there is Auschwitz/Birkenau -- the Holocaust is not the most important aspect of the war, but it was a very significant aspect of the human experience during that conflict -- which is extraordinarily thought-provoking.

I was impressed with the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, and the Canadian War Museum (small collection, but very good). I was at the Imperial War Museum five years ago, and thought it was very good, very informative, and really interesting.

I am looking forward to the opening of the German History Museum in the Zeughaus in Berlin. According to some diagrams on its website, it will have a large section devoted to the war.

I went to the museum in the Zeughaus when it was still run by our Socialist friends in the then East Berlin. There was virtually nothing in there on World War II unless it was about the Holocaust and abbout how evil the Western Allies were for bombing the German Cities into the stone age.
I do remember there was a display case which nomally had a curtain in front of it but which I got to see one time. it contained a human skin lampshade and a human shrunken head. I could never understand why they were on display since when one of the security guards saw us looking at it he immediatly shooed us away and pulled the curtain back over the case. If you don't want people to look, then why have it on display. Go figure.

Regards,

Duxford (England) has a great museum. I went there because of my interest in aviation, and was more than impressed (ten years ago the WW2 aircraft on display included Me109, Hurricane, Sunderland, etc). The museum itself is on a WW2 airbase (the one used to portray the RAF base in the filming of "Battle of Britain") and still has a number of its wartime structures restored. Since I visited, the American Air Museum has opened there, as well. What I didn't know about and found facinating to visit was the Military Vehicle Museum located at the far end of the airfield. It has huge "sets" into which significant vehicles are placed, for instance a street "scene" in Berlin has a T34 moving through the edge of a building, and they also have Rommel's DAK HQ trailer, etc.

The "Cabinet War Rooms" underneath Whitehall, near 10 Downing St in London, are very worth visiting. This bunker was frequently visited and used by Churchill during and after the Blitz. It has a great audio tour, and lots of facinating detail. It is set up to look as if Churchill and his staff had just stepped out for a moment.

The "National Army Museum" in the London area (Chelsea, I believe) also has some great exhibits and a constantly changing set of lectures and living history presentations. An added plus to visiting this museum is that it is next door to a Veterans Home, and many of the vets that I casually met were very friendly and appreciative of an interested listener for their stories.

The "Bunker Museum" in Emden (Ostfriesland, northwestern Germany) is an excellent museum. It is constructed within one of the huge above ground bombshelters that still dot Emden (the water table is so high that the shelters had to be constructed above ground). Each floor is set up to show how various years or single years during the Nazi period and the war affected life in Emden. They have a great deal of oral and first person accounts, many original items, and don't try to dodge the difficult questions (Emden had a reasonably large Jewish community in 1933).

Also using the name "Bunker Museum" is a great museum in Normandy. It is the large fire control multi-story bunker very near the site of the Pegasus Bridge. It was finally broken into by British Royal Engineers, but the structure is largely intact, and each room is set up to look like it was in use immediately before the D-Day landings (there are tons of "detail" items lying about as if the soldiers had just vacated the room moments before you arrived on the scene).

Additional museum sites in Germany that may not be widely known are the Gestapo HQ "Topography of Terror" site at Prinz Abrechtstrasse, the Bendler Blok Army HQ where Stauffenberg and Beck were shot (both in Berlin), Peenemunde (on the Baltic near the present Polish/German border) which has a museum on the V1&2 projects, and the NSDAP Rally Grounds in Nurenburg (there is an interesting museum there on the Nazi's use of propaganda).