Exhibitions are a particularly good way into the First World War because the war is unusually well preserved in material terms. Uniform fragments, field post, trench art, photographs and film survive in quantity – unlike earlier conflicts, whose traces have largely vanished.
Museums approach it in noticeably different ways. Houses in the former front areas work with the ground they stand on: the site itself is part of the exhibition. Museums well behind the lines tend to show the war's effects at home – rationing, munitions work, hospitals. And museums in the successor states of the old empires often ask a different question altogether: how one empire became several nations.
Those differences are worth noticing. A permanent exhibition in Ypres, one in London and one in Vienna are not three versions of the same account. They are three national memories, each with its own emphasis and its own silences.
Visiting with a group
Go in with a question. „How did civilian life change?" or „What happened to the wounded?" turns walking through into looking for something. For school groups this is the difference between an outing and a piece of work.
Look at one object properly rather than fifty in passing. A repaired tunic, a field postcard with lines struck out by the censor, a cup beaten from a shell case – such things carry further than any summary panel.
Read the exhibition’s own date. A permanent display from 1985 tells this war differently from one built in 2016. Noticing that is an extra layer of information: it shows how remembrance itself has changed.
Combine the museum with a place. An exhibition explains; a cemetery or a preserved position creates proximity. Together they produce something neither manages alone.
Listed exhibitions
Series of exhibitions on the First World War
In 2014, more than 25 museums and institutions in the Upper Rhine region will be holding exhibitions on the First World War. The joint series of exhibitions organised by a tri-national museum network will be looking at the Great War from a variety of regional and thematic perspectives. Particularly interesting: visitors can attend exhibitions on the First World War in Alsace in France, Northwestern Switzerland, and Baden-Württemberg and the Palatinate in Germany to in order to explore different perspectives.Please go directly to the bilingual website for further information.
Entries come from this portal’s inherited holdings. Some of these exhibitions were tied to the centenary and have closed; opening times and run dates should be checked with the museum before travelling. The German section lists exhibitions by country and, for Germany, by federal state.
A last observation. Most museums show a fraction of what they hold. Anyone working on a specific subject – a regiment, a place, a category of object – often gets further with a direct enquiry to the collection than with a visit to the permanent display. Curators tend to answer at length when it is clear that someone is working seriously.
Frequently asked questions
Which museums have permanent First World War displays?
Among others the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres, the Mémorial de Verdun, the Historial de la Grande Guerre at Péronne, the Imperial War Museum in London, the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna and the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin. Many regional and municipal museums also hold First World War material in their permanent displays.
Are the exhibitions listed here still open?
Some were centenary projects and have closed. The entries record this portal’s inherited holdings rather than a current listings calendar, so run dates should be confirmed with the museum. Smaller houses often have restricted opening hours and may close entirely in winter.
Can an exhibition be borrowed?
Yes. State centres for civic education, regional archives and several associations lend touring exhibitions to schools, municipalities and societies, usually with panels, teaching material and sometimes objects. Lead times of several months are normal.
What should a school group prepare beforehand?
Three things are enough as a foundation: when the war began and ended, why it turned into trench warfare, and the order of magnitude of the losses. With those, everything else can be placed on the spot. Without them, visitors read panels.
