London the Imperial War Museum

[leon21]

Here's an interesting tour of the top exhibits at the Imperial War Museum London.

 

[Fritz]

I used to enjoy visiting the Imperial War Museums on a Sunday during the 1960s and early 70s, they had such impressive collections, especially from WW1 and also a nice range of German WW2 uniforms and arms, this remained unchanged for many years, and I could never see enough, some people would say, you should take your bed with you! However, having not visited for many years and seeing new impressions of the changes and new additions, I would now more describe it as a "Gemischtwarenladen", I am sorry to say. The postwar exhibits, I find, should be displayed elsewhere, they destroy the atmosphere of the World Wars period.

I also visited the DDR "Museum für Deutsche Geschichte" in East Berlin in Summer 1981. The collections there were re-stocked after WW2, as everything had been destroyed during the war. The scope was limited and also rather politically biased and one-sided, the feats of the "Glorious Soviet Union" being the main point of focus. One of the most interesting exhibits was the fieldgrey uniform, helmet and decorations worn by the Kaiser on the day of his abdication to Holland, I always wondered how these items ended up in the DDR, as the Kaiser never travelled again.

One of these photos shows a guillotine, and the DDR was condemning the Reich for the operation of this, whereas in the DDR at the time, there was a guillotine in the Prison in Leipzig, which was still fully operational and in use - this was used for all "delinquents" (mainly political prisoners, most of whom have since been postumously rehabilitated ) from all over the DDR, who were brought to the prison, concealed in a white deivery van, which arrived at the prison late in the evening, the executions taking place in the early hours of the morning. Being carried out in secret, all evidence of this was immediately destroyed.

Another interesting Museum is the "Deutsch-Sowjetisches Museum" in Berlin-Karlshorst, which is housed in the building of the former Soviet Kommandantura for Berlin, and is where the capitulation was signed on 9th May 1945 by Generalfeldmarschall Keitel, Admiral von Friedeburg and Generaloberst Stumpff. The building had formerly been the Heeres Pionieroffiziersschule, depicted here.

[Fritz]

Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin

 

[Fritz]