EUROPEAN MILITARY

146

MUSEUMS

2,800 uniforms; and 2,700 head pieces which are counted separately.

There are also a few ship and cannon models. Completing the in
ventory is a rather extensive art collection consisting of about
4,000 oil paintings and 6,700 prints and drawings. The finest
canvases are featured to good advantage in every hall, and many
of the prints, flags, and photographs have been mounted in re
volving stands and placed in the various exhibits to which they
relate.

Museum currently has about

The Heeresgeschichtliches
59,000 square feet allocated for interior exhibit. This space will
increase by several thousand square feet with the enlargement of
the navy hall and the completion of a new sizable artillery hall,

both of which are in process. The large colonnades which now

house much of the cannon exhibit provide a protected exterior
exhibit space of 48,000 square feet. In classifying the museum's
space utilization, the staff makes no differentiation between the
area assigned to ready reference materials and that given over to
other forms of storage, but for all categories of storage there is an
area of 34,000 square feet. The large and well-equipped work
shops occupy

almost

14,500

square feet, the offices 4,500, the

library and study rooms 2,400, and a refreshment room 1,200,

and there is an auditorium occupying about 2,600 square feet.
It is quite evident that all employees of the museum take
much pride in the present attainment of their institution, for most
have participated in the difficult work of restoration. They had to
repair and preserve many objects in the collection before these
Almost the entire inventory of
museum furnishings was built in the workshops. The professional
staff does not view the museum merely as a repository of sig
nificant historical objects, but rather they think of it in terms of a

could be placed in the exhibits.

major center for the study of military history, one which is closely
allied with other higher institutions of learning and increasingly
contributing the fruits of its own creative endeavor. The museum
thus provides an academic atmosphere through the activities of its
curators

who are primarily military historians

with particular

fields of specialization.
Because

the museum's

educational

functions

receive such

strong emphasis, the curatorial staff has devoted much energy to