Was the last sentence in an interesting article in a Dutch daily on the new militairy museum opening in Dresden, Germany tomorrow. It was the answer by one of the museum curators on the question whether soldiers would not be shocked by the items on display and the ‘narrative’ of the museum. The Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr according to their site [German only] uses various perspectives, is modern, is critical and scientifically up to date. It is not only a museum focusing on the technical aspects of war, but rather on the cultural sides of war. How that works out? No clue, as the opening is only tomorrow.

But a striking fact already is that whereas militairy museums of the early 20th century were merely heralding the national army, this one seems to really focus on war as a human condition. A condition in which all suffer. And therefore the museum doesn’t want to beautify war, not for regular visitors like you and me, neither for soldiers.

The design of the museum is by Libeskind, the architect who also was responsible for the Jewish Museum in Berlin. His website runs the following text on the new museum: “Since its 1897 founding, the Dresden Museum of Military History has been a Saxon armory and museum, a Nazi museum, a Soviet museum and an East German museum. Today it is the military history museum of a unified and democratic Germany, its location outside the historic center of Dresden having allowed the building to survive the allied bombing campaign at the end of World War II. In 1989, unsure how the museum would fit into a newly unified German state, the government decided to shut it down. By 2001 feelings had shifted and an architectural competition was held for an extension that would facilitate a reconsideration of the way we think about war.”

Now that reconsideration apparently is one of war as a a tragedy embedded in human history. Greed and stupidity play a role, but so do empathy and sacrifices. “This museum is a museum on people,” said one of the curators in the earlier mentioned interview. But whereas Creveld sees war as a necessary and driving force in human history the musem in Dresden seems to tend to Achterhuis‘s opinion we need rituals and ceremonies to curb it.

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