PanzerMuseum East Gift Shop

The Gift Shop at Panzermuseum East, Slagelse, Denmark, is crowded with uniforms, gas masks, models, spent brass, radio equipment, flags and more.

 

Museums, like their creators, have personalities. Panzermuseum East in Slagelse, Denmark, is neat with immaculately restored guns and vehicles and displays.  And it is very crowded.  Tanks, trucks, guns, armored vehicles, tank engines, radios, field hospitals, field kitchens, missiles, missile launchers, helicopters, a transport plane, and decontamination equipment crowd the buildings and the area around the buildings.  

I wrote about the museum two weeks ago.

The neat, organized, crowded feel of the museum displays carries over into the amazing gift shop near the entrance. In the photo above, are full uniforms, jackets, spent cartridges from every kind of gun: rifles to howitzers.  The snack bar table is atop 55-gallon oil drums.  

Near the entrance, by a window is a display of dozens of scale model tanks and armored vehicles, soldiers and toy helmets.  

There are hundreds of scale models of planes, ships, tanks and trucks from World War II to present day equipment.

Even landing craft....

Along with the models are racks of uniforms.

Spent cartridges up to 105mm cannon ammo. Radios, field mess kits, cases and other gear. 

Gifts and toys.....

Even toy guns!!!!!

Maria, who runs the gift shop, said  they sell nine of these Soviet era replica gas masks each week to kids who want these masks!! 

Hundreds of packs and pouches.....

Lots of belts......

And uniforms.......

A long rack of dress and fatigue uniforms and hats from various armies and eras.

Flags and canteens....

Hats....

Top Gun gear....

Flight suits......

Tank Museum Designed as a Warning: Panzer Museum East, Denmark

Most military museums, particularly tank museums, display the best and most lethal weapons of their country. Part of the intent of these museums is to say,

"Look at the awesome firepower our soldiers had." 

When I visited the Deutsche Panzermuseum, one hundred years of German innovation and technology was clearly on display. The Armored Corps Museum at Latrun, Israel, displays tanks Israel fought with right up to the Merkava (chariot) developed and built in Israel. 

So I was quite surprised when I toured the many exhibits of Panzermuseum East in Denmark. All of the exhibits are of Cold War Soviet weapons and equipment.  The museum was designed and built as a warning to what could have happened to Denmark if the Soviet Union had invaded.  Their official intent: 

At Panzermuseum East we tell the story of the Cold War and our focus since its inception has been to show visitors from around the world what would have been seen on the streets and in the air if the Warsaw Pact, led by Russia, (The Soviet Union), had attacked Denmark during the tense and heated period leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union. We also document what would have happened if nuclear weapons had been used, and the terrible consequences of this, namely that there would have been a total Ragnarok throughout Europe, with millions of dead and destroyed.

The collection is several buildings crowded with Soviet tanks, trucks, missiles, guns, motorcycles, radar stations, ambulances, field kitchens, and other equipment. 

BMP armored personnel carrier 

T-72 M1

T-55 AM2

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the museum has been tagging displayed vehicles, like the BMP and T-72, that are being used by the Russian invaders of Ukraine.

Here is what the head of the museum says about the Russian invasion of Ukraine:

Regarding the horrific and heinous attack on Ukraine. 

Ukraine is being brutally attacked right now, with a lot of material that the Panzer Museum East has on display, which the heroic Ukrainians are also using to defend themselves. Unfortunately, the brutal superpower also has far more modern equipment than the Ukrainians, so it's an unequal battle. That is why it is so important that we all support and help the Ukrainians in their fantastic fight for freedom and democracy. 

On 28 February, Tank Museum East asked the Danish army for a donation of 1,200 boxes of field rations for the brave soldiers of Ukraine. If they are donated, we will immediately drive to one of the major border crossings between Poland and Ukraine and hand them over to all those who enter Ukraine to fight for freedom and democracy and a happy future. Right now, as you read this, what I myself was terribly and cruelly afraid of when I was young is becoming a harsh reality. I myself, together with my wife, visited Chernobyl and experienced Kyiv, and we had only positive experiences and great respect for the people in their struggle to build a healthy democracy and live as free people. 

Out of my pacifist ideology and to point out that war and enmity can and will never lead to anything good for humanity, I have founded my very own private tank museum East. That is why spreading the word about history is so important, even if it seems that at the moment no one cares about the atrocities of the past. Of course I have deep contempt for the cruel and blunt attack on Ukraine.

Best regards 

Owner of the Panzermuseum East 

Allan Pedersen and staff

BMP armored personnel carrier

PRAGA M53/59 "Lizard" with 30mm anti-aircraft guns

Tank transporter flatbed truck with a T-72 tank on the end of its bed.

Medical Electronics Technician Travels the World, Retires to Denmark Boat Dock

The dock at Tues Naes, Denmark

The guesthouse where Cliff and I stayed in Tues Naes, had a washer-dryer, but the dryer wasn't working. We decided to drive to a laundromat, but then Cliff remembered a notice on the bulletin board of the boat dock where we had walked the day before. 

We went there and asked the Jan, the dock manager. When we only needed a dryer, he told us just to go ahead and use it, and offered us coffee. No charge for either. 

When the clothes were dry, I thanked Jan. He asked where we were from.  We started talking about travel. He had been all over the world as a technician for Varian, a medical electronics company. He told us about going to Benghazi, Libya, and sitting at the airport shaking on the night he left, hoping he would get out alive.

Of all the places he had been in the world, the place he went the most in the final years of his career was the place he liked the least:  Las Vegas.  He is a tall, lean, strong man with a very calm affect, but he became animated talking about Las Vegas.

"They set up a training program in Vegas," he said. "Then they made it permanent. Every few months I would have to go there. I would spend a week or a month. I worked 10 or 12 hours a day. After work, I would get food from a local Italian restaurant and eat in my room."

He was not interested in clubs or shows or casinos. "We were building equipment to cure cancer," he said. "The company would hand cards to all the employees so they could eat steak and lobster in the casinos and get less healthy." 

"Las Vegas takes water from everywhere," he said. "It's unnatural. It should not exist." 

Then a little ferry swung up to the dock. It had seats for eight passengers and a small outboard motor.  Jan said he had to do some work. We thanked him again and took the dry clothes back to the guesthouse.  

Cliff and I were laughing on the way back about Jan's description of Las Vegas.  Jan never actually said he liked Las Vegas more than Benghazi. It was clear he would never go to either again.

  

Profound Moments from Visiting Countries for the First Time

 

The sky at 1am in Bodo, Norway.

On this trip I traveled to  or through eight countries. Three are my favorite destinations in the world: France, Germany and Italy. Two I just passed through: Turkey and Sweden. Three I visited for the first time: Denmark, Norway and the Vatican. In each of the countries I was in for the first time, I had an experience that only being in that place could give me. 

In Bodo, Norway, I was above the Arctic Circle.  At 1am, when the sun is due north in the northern hemisphere during Daylight Savings Time, I was walking around Bodo. I took the picture above of the cloudy sky with the sun shining in from due north.  I have known this to be true since I first understood Earth's orbit, but seeing it made me irrationally happy.  The sun really was visible due north!  

In Denmark my friend Cliff and I visited Panzer Museum East southwest of Copenhagen.  On the way to Denmark a few days before, we visited Deutsches PanzerMuseum north of Hannover.  That museum, like most military museum, celebrates the weapons of that country. The museum in Denmark does not. The collection of hundreds of tanks, trucks, armored vehicles, missiles, aircraft, cannon, medical equipment, engines, radar systems and other equipment is Soviet-made. 

The museum is designed to be a warning: If the Soviets had invaded Western Europe, these vehicles would have been attacking our country. In a chilling update of the collection, the vehicles that Putin's Russia is using to invade Ukraine are tagged in the display. Nowhere in the museum is any vehicle or equipment ever used by the Army of Denmark.

Also in Denmark, I learned about very different burial practices common in both Denmark and Germany.  Headstones and burial plots are rented for 25 or 50 years.  Then someone gets the space.  I wrote about that here.

The third country I visited was the Vatican.  Like Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, it is a city state, a member of the United Nations with its own government, but the size of a city.  Over the past fifteen hundred years the Vatican has had vastly different levels of power. Its current status as an independent state was granted by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in 1931.  

Before visiting the Vatican, I read a lot about the Catholic Church in Germany. Before and during the trip I was The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler  by David I. Kertzer.  The book is based on Vatican archives opened in 2020 that detail long-hidden history of Pope XII with Hitler and Mussolini.  

I took a train to the Vatican and rode a bike to  St. Peters Square. I walked into the vast plaza and was overwhelmed with sadness.  'To keep this you let all the Jews die,' was what I thought as I walked looking up at the statues and the fountain. Everything about the place screamed temporal power. This was a place of riches and political influence.  

I left and went back to Rome, which was another revelation for me. No amount of reading or maps prepared me for how small the area was that encompassed the Palatine Hill, the Colosseum, the Capital, markets, baths, temples, circuses, all in a relatively small space.  

Travel to a new place is its own reward.  

 

A Thousand-Year-Old Church in Denmark and What I Learned about Burial

 

Just after we crested a small hill on a drive in Denmark, this beautiful Church was 500 meters ahead. My friend Cliff and I stopped to take a picture of what turned out to be a thousand-year-old Church of a type very common in Denmark. It is called Sorbymargle Kirke.  

Just after we stopped, the caretaker, Carina Rasmussen, drove up and offered to let us see the inside of the Church.  The design, long and narrow, is replicated across the country in Church large and small.  

There were very old drawings on the wall.  

But the real revelation was the graveyard.  I had seen another Church the day before with an immaculate garden cemetery.  This one is lovely.

Do you see what's missing?  I didn't. But it was not until we visited another Church where I saw old headstones in what could have been a granite recycling bin that I got the story on what's missing--old headstones.  In America, graveyards are the biggest problem faced by people who design roads and bridges and housing projects. We bury people in durable caskets. People here are buried in biodegradable caskets. The plot is a 25 or 50 year rental. By then, the current occupant is part of the soil and someone else moves in.  

The headstones get recycled as stone.  

The graveyards stay small and clean. there are no cracked, faded, broken 300-year-old headstones.  

One of the wonderful things about travel is seeing culture in a way you never could except on the ground in the place you are visiting.  And in this case, getting the answer to a question I never knew to ask.

Danish Ferry Crewman Who Worked in Thule Greenland and Served with Elite British Regiment

 

On Wednesday, I waited on the dock in Elsinor, Denmark, to board a ferry to Sweden.  A member of the crew walked up and asked if I was just waiting or boarding the ferry that was leaving in two minutes.  I said I was waiting for the next one to meet up with my friend who was a foot passenger.  I told him I was going to Sweden just to ride my bike. 

We started talking about travel. Then about the military. He was in the Danish Army in the 90s and served with the elite British Army cavalry reconnaissance unit known as the Life Guards.  He had seen my armor tattoo and showed me the Life Guards tattoo on his shoulder.

Then he said he worked for a year on the American Air Base in Thule, Greenland. He still had the THULE identification tag on his key ring.  He was there between 2008 and 2009, about the time I left for Iraq. We made a couple of jokes about differences in climate between the two bases.  I told him I have an uncle who was assigned to Thule in 1972, around the same time I first enlisted. Martin said with a huge smile, "I wasn't even a dirty thought back then!"   

Martin said his job on the ferry didn't pay much, but he really liked his co-workers and the work. I told him that was my goal in work, to be with great co-workers and do a job I liked.  We talked about how different travel is now compared to before the 9-11 attacks. But for both of us travel is worth whatever hassles come with it.  We both prefer trains, ships and cars to flying.  

After we talked, Martin continued went to work loading the ferry. I was delighted to find it was the ferry "Hamlet" within sight of Elsinor Castle.