This Gentleman is Michael Trömner, a historian and collector of early firearms. He posted this on vikingsword.com and I am reposting it here for everyone to see. This is beyond sad, it's criminal:

Since the German Reunification in 1990, state and museum funds for all cultural belongings in common, and especially for the purchase of antique 'military'/arsenal firearms - no matter how old and important they may be - , have been crudely cut back. Military firearms are officially condemned as possibly raising aggressive feelings with museum visitors viewing them.

The situation has aggravated, especially after those rampages acted by youngsters started. At Columbine high-school in Colorado, two senior students murdered 12 of their fellow students and one teacher in 1999. Moreover, they injured 24 students, with three other people being injured while attempting to escape. Eventually, the killers committed suicide.
The German cultural authorities feel that those antique historical firearms may incite young people to go mad and act in killing frenzy (German: Amoklauf). In 2009, at Winnenden high-school, Southern Germany, and in a murder-suicide act, a 17-year old student shot 16 people imcluding himself.

Actually, it was Swiss! cultural politicians who started that anti-historical firearms campaign in the 1990's. Consequently, large and important Swiss firearms collections have been banned from public exhibition and packed into the storage rooms. This happened to the large famous weapons collection at the Historisches Museum Berne, to the ample collections of the Swiss Landesmuseum Zurich and the Altes Zeughaus Solothurn, as well as to a other Swiss state museums.

And it was the same sad story with German museums as well. By the early 1990's, almost all firearms have been withdrawn from the exhibition rooms of such important museums as the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum Munich, the Deutsches Historisches Museum/Altes Zeughaus Berlin or the wonderful arsenal collection at the Stadtmuseum/Zeughaus Munich - to name just a few of them. Most antique firearms, 300 to 600 years old, have even been withdrawn from the huge exhibition halls of the Bayrisches Armeemuseum Ingolstadt, only 30 km next to my home.
They will never be on viewing again for at least the next 30 years!

On the other hand, crossbows, edged weapons like swords and, of course, all kinds of armor, are still officially regarded as noble and gallant (German: edel), knightly or even kingly, and are not primarily defined as means of war, by both the official political and cultural Swiss and German authorities and the museums. Consequently, they are allowed to stay on exhibition, while antique firearms, even - or maybe especially - when they are the earliest ever made, like all guns in my collection, which holds not one single item that was manufactured after ca. 1720! Even the most antique firearms are officially condemned - politically, morally and culturally, and are regarded as endangering peaceful life and politics.

The story is as sad as it is true. Most museum curators will look down in a highly suspicious way on any scholar asking to be granted access and do research on firearms and their accouterments. Many of those people, especially the so-called generation 1968, and of course female curators, even react personally and blatantly disgusted. Various times, I have been asked how I can manage to combine my academic interest in these items with my conscience, and have been affronted as being a firearms freak who is gaga about guns. Of course I have fired original 400 year-old muskets; is just part of my comprehensive research, and believe me: firing a matchlock musket that is 1.67 m long overall and weighs 1o kgs is an incomparable experience which leaves a lasting impression.

Everybody who really knows me and both my personal and political serious creed realizes that I actually love and defend peace, as well as the rights of all political persecutees and refugees, that I respect all living beings, and especially humans, no matter what color their skin may be or what nation belong to. I have always fought for the good fight, and animal rights. I love and defend all animals, and especially cats, from the bottom of my heart!
Not only am I a Christian and believe in God, I also graduated, among others, in Theology from Regensburg University in 1982.

But I also love historical arsenal arms, just for their cultural, historical, technical, art historical and social importance; and they clearly document the fact that there are both sides to every medal, as well as every human being is, and will always be, giftet with both good and evil - the reverse of the medal.

Europeans are effeminate weaklings... already knew this.

We aren't far behind I am afraid.

More bleeding heart-liberal pussification .



Anyone who leaves a museum and is somehow moved to violence merely from the display of firearms , needs serious fucking therapy .



This country WORLD is so fucked

History disagrees with your statement.

We're the ones that produced Pajama Boy, I'm afraid.

FIFY

This.

It's more than likely the sheer amount of warfare, especially the horrific wars of the 19th and 20th centuries, that turned Europeans off of firearms. That, they never had the "right" to bear arms legally outlined like we did.

I don't understand the theory that an object can somehow move a person to commit violence. Especially the early matchlocks, which are amazing pieces of technology and human ingenuity. The world has gone mad.

The world hasn't GONE mad, it has always BEEN mad.

"...........condemned as possibly raising aggressive feelings".

Damn hoplophobia.

I swear, some people around the world must think guns are made of Hate Metal and emit violence radiation that makes people go mad and want to murder people.

It's that stupid. Simply, purely, stupid.

and rushing to catch-up

I had to google the guy...apparently he is fairly prominent in the museum/historical weapons world.



Wife being German...she's not shocked. "It's b/c most people over there have never even handled a gun"



More so in the West than East. In the East, she was required to do military type training in school (think...2k run with a rifle and grenades, with a grenade throwing station and shooting station).



Her mom was terrified by the thought that we have guns in the house. She's never seen one of them...but terrified with the knowledge they're here.

What's even more sad is that this guy, Michael Trommer, who had dedicated his life to early firearms research, is now a nuisance in Germany. He is very sick and can't even afford medicine. He has no income - no grants are coming from the government. No museum is interested in his collection, which is one of the most amazing in the world. It looks like they want him and his creed to disappear.

Sad.

I went to some castle in Nurmberg Germany in 2004. They had a decent collection of very large matchlock and other types of muzzle loading firearms.  I hope that they have not caved yet.

Chances are, they have.

In 25 years there will be land war in Europe.  Maybe sooner, it just depends on economics.  This shit runs in cycles and it WILL happen again.

You can't repress the human condition and human behavior forever.  The more you try, the more violent the reaction will be.

I guess that is why my grandparents left Europe... they saw the pussification coming

There's a war going on in Europe right now. If anyone had told me a year ago that Ukraine is going to explode like this, I would have called him a nut...

It's probably because the Ukrainians and the Russians go to museums with displays of ancient armor and arms too often.That's what had prompted the whole thing.

Fair enough. Modern Euros then

I'm happy to have the D-Day museum so close to me. And they just expanded! Will need to go pay them a visit to show support of their great collection.

This.  The men have vaginas surgically grafted on at birth to decrease assertiveness and foster passivity.



They aren't even called "men" anymore.  They're called "wem".



 

In Germany? Intriguing...



He should have a pension and "free medical"

 

That's what I thought, too. But I guess in order to get free medicine he would have to get rid of all possessions, including the collection.

Fuck that 42% of his income he paid every month for his entire life, eh?



I might have to inquire to the wife more about the med system over there later today....I know her mom buys supplemental insurance for several hundred a month. She also got "screwed" on her pension for being in the East Those in the west literally get around 3x more.



 

Where's the "Shut Up and Take My Money" gif?



Ah, here's one:







 

No shit, I want a Hate Metal upper too!
 

When I read stories like this or run into people or groups that espouse the idea that anything can be negotiated or talked out, my mind always goes back to this quote and the truth in it.

The Germannic tribes were once feared to a point that even Caesar's legions only made a short forray across the Rhine. Their military hardware was some of the best available in later years, their ships able to go toe to toe with the Grand Fleet. Then, the British and the French set the stage for such fanatical nationalistic socialism as embodied by the Nazi party, and the various evils that were committed. You can thank the Treaty of Versailles and the rest of Europe for that one.

Now, the entire county seems to have been turned into eunichs. Any kind of national pride is apparently related to Nazism and therefore shunned or avoided, violence is censored in all forms of media, museums and histories burried. Sad to see such a culture like that turn so weak.

The white Mr. T will be along shortly to explain, I'm sure.

FYIGM

Come to the military museum in Tallinn and see the fun game where kids get to shoot down Russian helicopters with an M2.



You have to start them young

Aren't you the ones who expel kids from school for having food in the shape of guns?

lol que

Does anyone here have any connections in museums? Maybe someone will be able to help Mr. Tromner, if only for an amazing knowledge he'd acquired over the years. It's unbelievable that a leading firearms scholar is abandoned and left in a desperate situation.

Believing in peace solveing everything is as asinine as believing violence will solve everything.

I really want to visit.

I'm not surprised by the Germans Doing this, they have worked very hard in the recent past to eliminate all historical references to violence. Part of it being fueled by the atrocities they committed during WWII. I cant blame them After all what country would advertise they committed one of the worst genocides the world has every seen! But it is part of history and sad to see them covering it up and to have a whole young generation of young German men and women who have no knowledge of the world wars.

Fixed it

Didn't really help much when we marched over and killed off two generations worth of Alpha males in two world wars.

Except it used to limp and hop to keep up with rationality. Now it's taken the lead. We're going backwards in so many ways.

I just wanted to add that these "authorities" are missing the big picture. Because after all, what constituted a "firearm". It is no more than a pipe closed on one end with a touch hole drilled in. A 2n grader can make one with supplies from a local hardware store. Same goes for a powder - both charcoal and saltpeter are easily made. So if anyone wants to make a gun and shoot someone with it, he could do so fairly easily. The genie is out of the bottle, no matter what the politicians think.

But Michael's collection is not an "arsenal of deadly weapons", but an insight into progress of human civilizatoon. I've seen photos - he has everything from earliest crude barrels to extremely complicated matchlocks, as well as period artwork depicting yhease weapons in action. To say that all this stuff is merely killing instruments would be to ignore everything associated with human history and culture.

LOL...(Agreeing with you) no shit.



 

Bump

Bump

God bless Estonia!

White guilt.

Mo-rans, everywhere!