Museum of Military and Contemporary History

Günther Weissenseel grew up in postwar Franconia, surrounded by the region’s history. His youthful friendship with American soldiers grew into an avid interest in all things military. He collected documents, uniforms, weapons, trucks, tanks, even field kitchens. He gathered German, American and, later, Soviet relics wherever he could find them. In 1994, he and some friends created the Military History Club Franconia with the hopes of displaying some of the pieces he had gathered. The homespun Museum Militär-und Zeitgeschichte (Museum of Military and Contemporary History) opened three years later on a farm on the edge of Stammheim, a village along the Main River about 15 miles north of Kitzingen. Since then it has grown more than tenfold, to some 54,000 square feet in two adjacent buildings, with more tanks and artillery stored outside