German Tank Museum

The Bundeswehr’s (German Army’s) school of armoured warfare is situated at Munster, and from the 1960s officers at the school began to accumulate a collection of tanks for training purposes. The establishment of a teaching collection was formally approved by the federal Ministry of Defence in 1972. Ten years later a joint enterprise of the commandant of the school and the city of Monster was inaugurated, using the existing collection as the nucleus of a museum that was opened to the public in September 1983. It displays armoured vehicles of many kinds, battle tanks, reconnaissance tanks, bridge-laying tanks, self-propelled guns, armoured personal carriers, staff cars and motor cycles. There are also uniforms of tank regiments, the radios they used for communication and the optical sights used for aiming. The chronological scope of the displays is from 1916 until 2003, and the collection includes exhibits not just from Germany, but from Austria, Sweden, Israel, the United States, Great Britain and the former USSR. The exhibition includes several archive films. The museum interprets armoured warfare in broad social contexts, and has been remarkably successful in attracting large numbers of visitors.