Legermuseum

The Koninklijk Nederlands Legermuseum, or Royal Dutch Army Museum, was the national museum of the Dutch Army, located from 1986 until January 2013 at the Armamentarium in Delft, Netherlands. Founded from a private collection that became a state institution, it served as the principal repository for Dutch military history before its collections were merged into the new Nationaal Militair Museum at Soesterberg in 2013. Its evolution from a single benefactor's passion to a nationally significant institution reflects the changing practices of military museology in the Netherlands across the twentieth century.

The museum originated in the private collection of General Frederic Adolph Hoefer (1850-1938), who purchased Doorwerth Castle near Arnhem to house and display his military collection to the public. On 5 August 1913, Prince Henry opened the Nederlandsch Artillerie Museum (Dutch Artillery Museum) there. The Minister of War subsequently restructured it as the Dutch Army Museum Foundation, with Hoefer remaining chairman until his death. In 1928 the foundation was formally established as Het Nederlandsch Legermuseum. The collection received its royal prefix in 1973, becoming the Koninklijk Nederlands Legermuseum. Plans to relocate emerged as Doorwerth Castle proved too small and vulnerable to Rhine flooding. In December 1940 the foundation decided to move to the Pesthuis in Leiden, which the Ministry of Defence had acquired, but World War II delayed restoration and the museum opened there only in 1956 under the name Nederlandse Leger- en wapenmuseum 'Generaal Hoefer'. In 1959 the foundation was granted use of the Armamentarium in Delft, a former artillery magazine. After deciding to consolidate at the Delft site, renovation lasted eight years. The Minister of Defence opened a historical display there in 1986 in the presence of Prince Bernhard, and Queen Beatrix opened the complete museum in 1989. The museum closed at Delft in early 2013 and merged with the Militaire Luchtvaart Museum; the combined institution opened as the Nationaal Militair Museum in 2014 on the former Soesterberg airbase.

Among the signature pieces in the Delft collection were a rare Japanese light tank from 1937, captured in the Dutch East Indies in 1947 after use by Indonesian freedom fighters; a Dutch field kitchen from the 1930s used by the Second Field Artillery Regiment; and Prince Bernhard's jeep, which he used during visits to Maastricht, Eindhoven, and Zutphen at their liberation in World War II. Other significant items included the first machine gun used by the Dutch Army, a Dutch B.S.A. motorcycle combination from 1939 equipped with a Lewis machine gun, and a Centurion MK5/2 tank in Dutch service until 1985. The museum also displayed a diorama of Dutch soldiers manning a 20mm anti-aircraft gun from the immediate pre-war period, illustrating the hasty rearmament of Dutch anti-aircraft defenses.

The Delft location was the Armamentarium, a former artillery magazine of the States of Holland and West Friesland on Korte Geer. The oldest section dated from 1601-1602, with additions in 1660 and around 1692. In 1802, following the bankruptcy of the Dutch East India Company, a VOC warehouse was incorporated into the complex. The Ministry of Defence had stored there a substantial stock of ammunition and artillery, primarily German materiel left behind in 1945, which initially served as study material before the collection was transferred to the museum foundation. The three-storey 1692 building housed the historical exhibitions from 1986, with the full museum complex operating as the Koninklijk Militair Historisch Museum. After the museum's departure in 2013, the Armamentarium was sold in July 2015 by the Rijksgebouwendienst to ArsenaalDelft, a development partnership between investor Driestar b.v. and project developer cepezedprojects b.v., with plans to redevelop the monument into a hotel and restaurant. From 2014, part of the building was temporarily used by TU Delft.