A museum full of tanks, for my kids? No question. This was somewhere I knew the kids would love, we had to go.

The museum is Scandinavia’s largest private collection of military vehicles and artifacts from the Warsaw Pact era, focusing on the Cold War (1945–1991) Allan Michael Pedersen has developed this collection. It was his plan to create a space where it would feature military history for if Denmark hadn’t surrendered to Germany just hours after they invaded. The invasion began at 4:15am on April 9, 1940 and they surrendered at 8:43am the same morning. It wasn’t worth the casualties to them and they had no defensive barriers since the land was flat. They wanted to protect their civilians.

So, Mr. Pedersen began collecting pieces of what would have invaded Denmark. All of his vehicles are in working condition, he has even recently sold two of them to the Ukraine.

Row after row of tanks and armored machines, from the earliest clumsy ones through the Cold War, each one bigger and heavier and stranger than the kids expected. Jake and Gavin moved through it like they had found treasure, reading every plaque, asking how fast, how heavy, how many people inside.

But the Panzermuseum East does not let you treat it as a toy show, and I was grateful for that. It sets these machines inside their real history, the wars they fought, the people they killed, the cost of all of it. And at some point Gavin got quiet and asked me why people built such terrible things. We stood there for a while. I did not have a clean answer, and I did not pretend to.

There are stories of soldiers and history all throughout the museum. Tons of mannequins are used to portray realism. There is an incredible uniform depot that feels like you are literally on the movie scene of Stripes. (Anyone else love that movie besides me?)

There is a scavenger hunt for kids where you have to find info cards around the museum…with a prize at the end. You can climb in some of the vehicles. There is even a military obsticle course for kids where you can receive a diploma of completion.

We came for the cool tanks and we left having talked, really talked, about war and history and the weight of what humans do to each other. Heavy for a Sunday. But these are the conversations I want to be having with them, out here, where it is real and not abstract.

If you go, know your kids. Mine are old enough to hold some of the harder history, and the museum does not soften it. It is large and indoor and outdoor, so it is a solid rainy day for machine loving kids. Give it a couple of hours at least, the boys could have stayed all day.

Nicole@FGLuxuryTravel.com
adventuresweseek.com