[Markus Fischer]

I am planning to visit a few museums in the next two weeks, which display historical arms and armour.

Because I am living in Germany, the german museums are currently the only ones reachable for me as I do not have the time right now to go on a big journey to a foreign museum (which I am planning to do at a given time).

I will probably have time for maybe 2 or 3 museums, so I will have to pick the right ones in order to get as much out of the trips as possible.

And thats why I wanted to ask which museums in Germany are worth visiting the most.

I have already been to the Klingenmuseum in Solingen two times (last time just a few months back). So this one currently is of no great interest to me, even though I will definitely revisit it in a few years.

Also, even though the collection in Solingen was very fascinating, I was a little disappointed that they did not have terribly many examples of high-medival swords in which I am interested most.

They had a very wide exhibition of cutlery in general....everything from the bronce-age, over the romans until the cutlery of the 20th century and modern custom knives.

They also had many Renaissance weapons...at least 30 rapiers, about 4 Zweihänder and also lots of hunting knives from the late 16th to the early 18th century.
Appart of that, they also did not have much armour...well, they had a single suit of plate armour of the Maximilian style (which I am not a huge fan of) but definitely not as much as I would have liked (which you cannot criticise them for as their name litually means "Blade-Museum").


I am mainly interested in european swords, pole-weapons and armour from the 11th to the late 16th century...especially longswords from the 15th and 16th century as well as Gothic plate armour.

Could someone recomment a few german museums which would fit my interests?


Thanks,

Markus

[Chad Arnow]

Markus,
I've never been there, but want to visit the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin (https://www.dhm.de/en/museum/about-us/). Their collection is highlighted in two of my favorite books (one on helms, one on edged weapons) and I think you'd enjoy it.

Rothenburg is intriguing as well, though I hear a number of the items could be of questionable provenance/authenticity.

Churburg Castle is another one, though it's pretty far south, I believe. This one might be better for armour than arms.

Have a great trip and take lots of pics!

[Markus Fischer]

Thank you Chad for your kind suggestions.

I did have Rothenburg on my mind as well...as I understand it, the authenticity of museum collections is always a little bit uncertain.
I recently had a long chat with James Elmslie on Facebook about that topic, and he stated that basically every museum has at least one or two pieces which are very likely to be fakes...but this is another topic in its own right.

And be assured that I will be taking as many pictures as possible ...I could also post a few here if that is of interest for anyone?

[J. Nicolaysen]

In Munich there's the Bavarian National Museum. In Ingolstadt there's the Bavarian Army Museum. Those have important collections for your time period and they are close together. Some very famous swords.

It's in Austria, but maybe it can be part of your trip, the Kunsthistorie museum Wien....Massive collection of armor there. Just a straight shot east from Munich after all...

Up north in Schleswig-Holstein, there's the Viking Museum of Haithabu and the Museum Fur Archaeologie Schloss Gottorf if you like iron age things.

[Kristjan Runarsson]