Military History Museum

Last Monday evening, the Erasmus Students Network in Dresden arranged an English tour of the Military History Museum in Dresden. To be honest, military history doesn't interest me much, so I wasn't planning on going. However, when I checked out the museum's website, I discovered that not only is it the largest museum in Dresden, unlike many military history museums, its goal is to explore what causes and results from war and violence. I'm glad I decided to go, because it turned out to be very interesting. Our tour guide was great as well. Unfortunately, my camera batteries died about halfway through the tour, so I don't have too many photos. I would like to return later to explore the museum further, as the entrance price is free.

The museum used to be a traditional military history museum, but was redesigned about six years ago with the help of architect Daniel Libeskind. Reconstruction was completed this year. The building is in the center of a military complex and used to be an armory. Libeskind pierced the building exterior with a sharp metal structure that points toward Dresden's city center.

As you enter the exhibits, first you go through a room with hundreds of copies of the words "love" and "hate" projected and moving over the walls. The words slowly mass into the form of a crouching soldier with a gun and break apart, again and again.

The first item we saw on display was a Pervitin pill. Pervitin is a methamphetamine that German soldiers were forced to take during World War II to keep them awake for days.

Walking down a corridor, we saw the world's oldest submarine:

Beside this was one of the first space shuttles, and next to it, the capsule in which the astronauts would fall back to earth. Because they weren't sure the capsule would land where they wanted it to, it was marked, in Russian and English: "Man in side! Help!" It made me feel very claustrophobic.

Many of these items were built by prisoners in the concentration camps. Around the corner, one of a prisoner's most precious items, a food bowl, was on display.

The caption said the aluminum food bowl was from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, Nordhausen, during the German Reich ca. 1943-1945. Three prisoners had carved their name or number into the pot. Presumably the pot had been taken each time after the previous owner had died of exhaustion or had been murdered. It was very sad.

We then saw an exhibit of how armor had changed over time, as weapons had become more and more deadly. It was bizarre to see early armor next to modern armor.

I thought the Saxon breast-plate (upper-right) was rather beautiful.

Next, we entered a room devoted to nuclear weapons. There were various concrete and metal shelters on one side of the room and nuclear missiles hanging from the ceiling. Every few minutes, there would be a flash, and if you were standing close to one of the walls, your shadow would be left on the wall for several seconds. I felt uncomfortable and was glad to leave the room.

We then walked down a narrow corridor in which a transport helicopter was attached to the wall. Standing below it you could feel what it would be like to have a helicopter (in this case, a relatively small helicopter) bearing down on you. Not good!



Going upstairs, we saw a ship peeking out from around a corner, which intrigued me, but we didn't investigate it, and quickly moved on.

Our next stop dealt with the role of animals in war. We saw, in a long line, different animals that had been used for transport, as mascots, and as weapons. The craziest things on display were a small horse wearing a burlap gas mask, and a dog with a wooden stick on its back, to trigger a bomb strapped to its chest when it ran under an enemy's horse. Poor animals. At this point, my camera died.

The next area was about the rise to power of Adolf Hitler. Our tour guide told us that when Hitler became the head of Germany's military forces, every soldier swore an oath of loyalty to him. She said this made a huge difference, and is why the soldiers did not surrender until after Hitler had killed himself.

There was also a section about life in the trenches. It was awful, basically. It also smelled terrible, as we discovered when we opened a small door in the wall behind which there was a machine emitting the smell of the trenches. Human waste and dead bodies, ugh. However, as we learned on the third floor, the trenches did give rise to that fashion staple, the trench coat. Speaking of military-inspired fashion, apparently underwear has its origins in the military. Soldiers didn't start wearing it until they were ordered to do so!

On the top floor of the museum, there were stones from the streets of three different cities in three different countries that were bombed during World War II. We walked out on a platform inside the metal wedge extending from the building. Through the metal screening, we could see the lights of Dresden's city center. It was kind of beautiful but also very cold. It was meant to be a hopeful scene, as Dresden has almost finished reconstructing its landmark buildings that were destroyed during the bombing of Dresden around Valentine's Day in 1945. This is where our tour ended.