Looking for Recommendations for 11-Year-Old WWII Enthusiast

I guess with "WWII history" you mean just the combat and weapons part; not the terror regime part and not the Holocaust part. The last one would be too much for an 11-yr old. Even some adults have issues after visiting concentration camps.

Assuming this I would spend a few days in Northern Germany and in Berlin.

Northern Germany with rental car from / to Hamburg:

• Laboe: submarine memorial with U995- a real disarmed version of the most used submarine in WWII
• Bremerhavn: submarine "Wilhelm Bauer" - that would have been the next generation of submarines in WWII
• Bremen: old town with medieval town hall building and lat in year a nice Christmas market (link)
• Hamburg: must-see Miniatur-Wunderland and maritime museum
• Lübeck: the center of medieval Hanse league (museum), wonderful old town and one of the best Christmas markets of Northern Europe

Hgh speed train to Berlin (Deutsche Bahn).
Berlin (besides top 10 sights and Christmas markets) - all public transport:

• Soviet tank memorial close to Brandenburg Gate (2 x T34)
• Military museum at ex-airport Berlin Gatow
• Museum of allied forces in Zehlendorf
• Fortress Zitadelle Spandau: different time but impressive - Christmas market Altstadt Spandau is close
• Museum Berlin Karlshorst (site of surrender) with permanent exhibition documents the criminal German warfare and occupation as well as Soviet society during the war
• Berlin Technology Museum: a paradise for freaks of old technology (industrial age +)
• Seelower Höhen: real battle ground of WWII close to Berlin
• Little Big City Berlin: Berlin history for kids
• Normally I would put DHM at top of list but it is under renovation.

From a war perspective Southern Germany played not a real role because too far away from fronts although some towns were also widely or partly destroyed under severe bombing attacks.

Hope that helps planning.

Absolutely fantastic.

Aside from the suggestions listed above, I'll add a few more in Germany if your boy wants to see ordinance, artillery pieces, etc, and, above all, tanks, lots of them.

1. I would suggest the Tank Museum in Munster/Oetze, not far from Celle and Lüneburg, ca 30 mins from the train station. It's all right as an introduction to get an overview, used to be better and more comprehensive in its presentation, but the massive one in England, the Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset, is where he would find fascinating, especially that section of the museum devoted to the Tiger tanks.

2. Koblenz.... the war / military museum here features ordinance, German ordinance in WW2, tanks, assault guns , PAK guns, etc.

The suggestions above for Berlin-Karlshorst and Seelow will have only Soviet tanks , guns, artillery pieces in the "gardens" of the premises, no German ones.

Another WW2 military site in the Greater Berlin area is Berlin-Krampnitz , a site for the Panzerschule (tank school) , taken over by the Soviets. Easier to get out there by car. You see the remnants of the site.

If he is also interested in naval warfare history, I would suggest in addition to Laboe the "Marine Museum" in Stralsund, which can be done as a day trip from Berlin Hbf.

I'm going to make a pitch for a mostly Rhine-focused itinerary with Cologne (at the northern end) to Stuttgart (southern end and not on the Rhine)

Thanksgiving might be a little hit or miss for Christmas markets, depending on when you start and how long you are staying. Some, especially smaller (more traditional) ones, won't open until the start of advent which is December 1 this year. Fortunately, Bonn is in the early column, which is great because it also includes the Museum of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany. This is a world-class history museum that tells the history of Western Germany starting with WWII. Also in Bonn is the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, which has an impressive permanent collection and hosts excellent rotating exhibitions. I just looked it up and their next exhibit while you are there is: MUSIC! Feel the Beat -- "The exhibition focuses on the experience of music and shows how music influences our bodies and emotions..."

Obviously all up and down the Rhine would be great for the medieval history lovers -- Cologne especially, but also Mainz, Speyer, and the castles of the Middle Rhine. I'd also recommend Stuttgart. Terrific history museum with a treasure-trove of ancient Celtic artifacts for your husband. Stuttgart also has the Mercedes Benz museum for the car lovers -- one of the best museums in Europe in my opinion. Cologne (at the northern end) to Stuttgart (southern end) puts a few other major things in your path like Heidelberg (also not on the Rhine) -- which is a fantastic music city, especially with the University. All of these also have magical Christmas markets, again depending on your timing.

As others have noted, this may not as be as rich in interpretation of WWII history as other parts of Germany, but it isn't bereft. Unfortunately, we're like you and your husband in our interests, and haven't done a lot of WWII (other than the museum in Bonn noted above). However, I am aware of additional museums by reputation. One stop I've read about, is the Zeitgeschichtliches Museum in Mannheim -- a small, community-run WWI and WWII museum in a converted bunker. Online reviews are great. Perhaps someone here can chime in if they've visited. The other I've heard is fantastic but heart-wrenching is the NS Documentation Centre in Cologne -- dedicated to the story of the rise of Nazism and the Third Reich. Might be too intense for an 11-year-old. Again, I'd be curious for other reactions. And I see @Fred has recommended Koblenz, which is also right in the mix of this region.

Anyway, you haven't said how long your trip is, and this is probably more than can be done, but wanted to add it to the hopper since I knew there would likely be a lot of recommendations around Berlin, Munich, etc.

These suggestions are fantastic, lots of things that I hadn't heard of before even with doing some reading of the Lonely Planet / Frommer's / RS Guide Books. Thank you so much!

Our trip is 20 days spanning Nov 20 - Dec 8, although I will be working remotely in the evenings from about 4pm some of those days (so still some time for sight-seeing in the early morning and afternoon).

Agreed that we will not be doing the concentration camp / genocide sites with him at this age, although I do feel a responsibility to introduce him to some Holocaust history if we are going to be in Germany.

Thoughts on Nuremberg? That's one that comes up a lot when people talk about Germany and kids.

Cologne and the Rhine sounds right up our alley, but will much be open at this time of year on the Rhine?

I hope you can do a trip to Normandy at some point in the near future (although November won’t necessarily be bad weather), it is extremely educational. Took my son when he was 11 and it made a significant, lifetime impression on him. We’ve been back 10 times since. We’ve been to Germany several times and the WWII history of guns and artillery pales in comparison to Normandy, imo.

If your itinerary does end up including going to Kiel, a comment here on Laboe to see the " Marine Ehrenmal" , as suggested above, not only for submarine. I am sure your 11 year old will find it fascinating walking through that U-Boat. The Museum and naval memorial are poignant. I heartily recommend climbing all those stairs to reach top to get a panoramic view of the Schleswig-Holstein countryside.

You can reach Laboe by bus from Kiel Hbf, easily identifiable as that bus indicates " Laboe" as its terminus, or by way of the Kiel harbour tour. The boat stops there in this 1.5 hour r/t cruise.

The large U-Boat Memorial is also part of the harbour cruise. It's located in a little town of Heikendorf, I've not been there, unlike Laboe, only saw it from afar as the boat passed by it. It does not stop there.

The regular travel guides ( Frommers, RS, etc) will not provide info on esoteric war sites. A specialised guide book for such sites gives more of such information. Since you read French and German, all the better. One such specialised source is "Miltärgeschichtlicher Reiseführer"
by H.-J. Niccolai.

Cologne and the Rhine sounds right up our alley, but will much be open at this time of year on the Rhine?

We've done almost all of what I suggested as a Christmas Markets trip in November/December, and all the major museums, etc. are open year-round. Something like the Zeitgeschichtliches Museum in Mannheim might have reduced hours, but as a local, volunteer-driven effort, you'd want to check those hours anyway. Nor would you see train travel impacted--I don't know of any routes that are not run during winter. Daytrip cruises on the Rhine itself wrap up in October; however, little one- and two-hour sightseeing trips are sometimes offered during Christmas market season, especially out of Cologne. So yeah, other than river cruising, time of year shouldn't impact most, if not all, of my suggestions. And, of course, the holiday season brings out new opportunities like concerts!

I think you have lots of suggestions, but is hard to imagine what an 11 year old boy might be expecting for sights related to WW2.

Several very good arms museums were mentioned, I think that would satisfy, seeing objects from the war period. The German History museum in Berlin also does a good job covering the war, in addition to much more.

But, many sites of bunkers, fortifications, even major battles, he might find underwhelming. Many were obviously heavily destroyed, or even disassembled after the war. A true enthusiast can look at a pile of rubble and a few remaining foundations and be enthralled, knowing the history and context. An 11 year old? Might be a big "meh". Germany really tried to put the war behind them, cleaned up much, did not build big memorials or museums to the war, the exception being Holocaust sights.

Aside from war related sights, since you mentioned cars, many like the Mercedes Benz and BMW museums

Cologne and the Rhine sounds right up our alley, but will much be open
at this time of year on the Rhine?

I support History Traveler's recommendations for this area. The NS Doc Center in Cologne should be alright. Cologne is a major German city where things open/close on their own schedules irrespective of tourism. Same for Mainz and Speyer (see History Traveler's post) both of which are worth your time. What HT did not mention: the Technik-Museum in Speyer.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g198634-d547848-Reviews-Technik_Museum_Speyer-Speyer_Rhineland_Palatinate.html

You're likely familiar with the Rheinromantik movement... inspired largely by the Middle Rhine Valley... Brentano, Goethe, Heine, etc. and their Brit/French counterparts Lord Byron and Victor Hugo come to mind. The MRV has UNESCO World Heritage status - and dozens of castles and castle ruins. From the city of Koblenz you can catch a train at any time of the year to Braubach, an old-world town with the Rhine's best castle for a look at medieval life... Marksburg... which also is open year-round. Some sites for you:

https://www.worldheritagesite.org/list/Upper+Middle+Rhine+Valley

Braubach scene

3 pages of photos around Braubach

Marksburg Castle

I would make a point of riding the east-bank railway from Koblenz > Braubach > Rüdesheim (where a Christmas market will be underway) to take in the scenery. See maps below.

http://www.loreley-info.com/eng/rhein-rhine/walking-hiking.php
http://www.loreley-info.com/eng/rhein-rhine/castles.php

R'heim Christmas market:
https://www.kikijourney.com/rudesheim-christmas-market-wonderland-in-germany-guide/

although I do feel a responsibility to introduce him to some Holocaust history if we are going to be in Germany

I understand it and like to support it by two ideas:

• Stumbling Stones: you can find them nearly everywhere in Berlin in the sidewalks infront of buildings. They mark places where vistims of Holocaust lived before and what happened with them. It is a very "unbloody" way to tell about that time - I avoid the word "explaning" because too many people still today find no explanations why that happend and was supported or accepted by their families.
• Anne Frank exhibition Berlin: this exhibition has also a special focus for kids and young adults.

Side story: When I was a young child the House of the Wannsee Conference was a youth camp and my kindergarten group spent one or two nights there. So we were playing in the building and on the ground where decades before Holocaust administration was planned.

Another remark: even today the war is not finally over in Berlin. We still have estimated between 4,000 and 5,000 bombs in our grounds and have nearly weekly findings of WWII bombs. Experts disarm and transport these old weapons (most cases 250 or 500 kg). Sometimes a few thousand people must be evacuated during dismantling for security reasons.

To consider in Berlin, lower- impact Holocaust items:

"Murdered ..." abstract memorial

Jewish Museum

Old Synagogue remnants

Stolpersteine

Reichstag and incription, Dem Deutschen Volk.

A book aimed at 9 to 12 year olds, The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti is a novelized re-telling of the the life of Helmuth Hubner, a 16-year-old who was the youngest person sentenced to death by the Nazi tribunal that heard cases of treason. Hamburg and Berlin have a few Hubner sites to see, if of interest.

https://susancampbellbartoletti.com/books/novels/boy_who_dared/

Unless I missed it somewhere, are you going to Munich? If not, but rather to Nürnberg, then do a trip from there to Munich to see the Deutsches Museum since the 11 year old has an expressed interest in planes, to see German planes starting in the first war. The Deutsches Museum has the jet plane, Me-262, which he well might be interested in seeing. You can only see that plane from the outside.

To see the inside of the two engines of the Me-262, you need to go to London to the RAF Museum in Colindale (North London).

On lower level introduction to the Holocaust: Since you read German, (fantastic) , aside from the Stumbling Stones, look at buildings where memorial plaques are posted, indicating who the previous owners of that building were and who perished in the Holocaust. Point these out to him.

Such a case in point is the Kempenski Hotel if you're on Kurfürstendamm. Point out to your boy what happened to the Kempenski family during the war.

Depending on his level of war interest, his understanding of the exhibits, the actual sites, etc, there is a lot more by way war memorials and museums pertaining to aspects of the war in Germany, plus the war cemeteries.

The largest one is in Hamburg. I've not seen that one but did visit that in Kleve , north of Xanten, in the lower Rhine area to see another large one, the Reichswald war cemetery.

Another low-impact Holocaust site in Berlin is a small museum about Otto Weidt and his WWII workshop for the blind.

https://www.visitberlin.de/en/museum-blindenwerkstatt-otto-weidt

Once you know the cities you will be visiting, have you son check a site named thirdreichruins.com. It has many photos taken at the end or just after the end of the war, and later photos of the same place taken much later. Very interesting contrasts.

For authentic photos regarding German history I would search in the official federal picture archive of Germany to avoid any fake - not judging about authenticity of the prior mentioned page.

If you pass thru Frankfurt, you may want to visit the IG Farben Building, less so for the war period, more so for the cold war period.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqnE2N6yQvY
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/ig-farben-haus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Farben_Building

Of the dozens of World War II sites I have seen (in Europe and Asia), one stands above the rest for its poignance: Auschwitz. It's quite sobering, and your son is only 11 years old, but it tells an essential story.

Though Auschwitz is in Poland, it's roughly 200 miles to the German border. It's a do-able side trip: https://www.auschwitz.org/en/

Craig, Auschwitz is a Holocaust memorial, not a WWII site (combat, weapons, ...). These are completely different history topics with very little overlays - even if they were done by the same regime in overlapping timeframes; they could have happened independently from each other.

IG Farben played a HUGE part in WW2. Please do not discount the millions of deaths and misery they caused.
The building itself is wonderful, but I don't think a child would be that interested in it.

If in Berlin, visit the Olympic Stadium, or perhaps Track 17.

I have been to Auschwitz and would not recommend taking an 11 year old there.

You might consider visiting the Eagles Nest in Berchtesgaden as well as Nuremberg. Nuremberg has were the trials took place as well as the former parade grounds where rallies were held.

Augsburg in Bavaria was founded over 2000 years ago during the reign of Caesar Augustus and is a very historic city.

Again, thank you for all these great suggestions.

I visited Dachau at the age of 18 and based on my experience there I would not take a child to a concentration camp site until about age 14. But I know those decisions are very personal. I certainly hope we'll be able to tour some of the Holocaust memorials like the Stumbling Stones and talk about the history in that context.

I think my son's biggest interest really lies in the planes and tanks and "materiel." It sounds like there are a couple of museums that have lots that would interest him in that area.

This forum has been a blessing and a curse because now I want to add about 20 more days to our trip!! But definitely based on these replies I'm thinking of lengthening the time on the Rhine and Cologne area and perhaps shortening somewhere else.

Exactly, the French word "matériel " expresses the meaning the best. Many of the suggestions above regarding Koblenz, Seelow, Berlin-Karlshorst, Munich, Munster/Oetze, Laboe display exactly that sort ordinance that will surely piqued his interest.

Since the German History Museum is undergoing renovation, presumable there's no chance it is to see the 8.8 cm FLAK gun, which in English is called the 88 mm gun. Museums in Paris, London, Vienna also display this, which you can go to also.

Regarding Roman history, can you make a trip to Trier for your husband? And even though it isn't about literature specifically, the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz is incredible for a perspective on what enabled literature to flourish.

BTW, has your son read the Liberation Trilogy by Rick Atkinson? If he is an avid and capable reader he should ready or close to ready to read these outstanding volumes on the US in WWII in North Africa and Europe. He will need to keep a thesaurus at hand.

If you visit the already mentioned Military Museum in Berlin-Gatow and / or Citadel Spandau you may visit nearly located the by far largest WWII memorial we have in Berlin. Climb on 120 m hill Teufelsberg, the second highest of Berlin, which is an artificial hill - only from WWII debris of Berlin. If you stand up there on the plateau and look over the city it is hard to imagine that you stand on dozens of meters of debris.

The ruin of the old NSA listening station there can be also interesting for you.

If you do Munich and want to go beyond the materiel side of things, the White Rose would be something worth learning; the participants were quite young--early 20s--but Willi Graf, for example, became a member of the Grey Order, an anti-Hitler Catholic group, by the age of 16 in 1934. In fact, a great deal of resistance work was carried out by young people--teenagers and young adults--and most of them had principles driving them that were developed at a far younger age.

In Berlin, you would also find information on resistance groups and such, and an 11 year old would almost certainly enjoy the DDR Museum and Checkpoint Charlie. Another interesting place might be the Gleis 17 Memorial.

For ancient history, Trier is your number one. Or the museums in Berlin.

For medieval history, well, you'd be hard pressed NOT to find it in, near, and around wherever you are going.

Transport: If you are in Berlin, consider visiting Tempelhof, the former airport, and learning about the Berlin Airlift. And the Berlin central train station is absolutely a must. Munich obviously has BMW.

In the north you could also look into whether or not Helgoland does its bunker tours in winter. If so, it's worth a day trip as long as your husband is willing to translate (we found that the guide was very accommodating when I was translating for our little group). Helgoland served as essentially an unsinkable aircraft carrier in WWII, and its history is fascinating.

And if you do go to Hamburg / Kiel / Laboe, you can get fairly close to the big ships even on the ferry (many harbor tours are limited in winter), and of course there is Airbus (though I would say the tour is underwhelming). The Alter Elbtunnel, with its car elevator, might be up your son's alley. Also, you could try to catch a concert at the Elphi (Elbphilharmonie), which allegedly has amazing acoustics (I haven't gone to a concert yet) and is worth seeing in its own right. Hamburg also has the composer's quarter ("quarter" is perhaps a generous term) with a Brahms museum.

I think you'll find a ton for everyone.

@olafgypsy, you've gotten some great suggestions here -- enough for three or four different trips I'm guessing. And some interesting food for thought about WWII history and memory. I hope you'll circle back in the future, and let us know what you ended up selecting!

@HistoryTraveler, absolutely agreed! I plan to read these responses to my son and husband as we are discussing the plan for our trip and see what most piques their interest.

Thanks to the poster who suggested the Liberation Trilogy for reading material. It does seem like something my son would enjoy, although advanced enough that I would need to read it to him at bedtime. (When I thought about having a child I always imagined we would read Harry Potter at bedtime…..it’s amazing where our kids’ interests take us, isn’t it?)

We also plan to watch A Bridge Too Far as we will be passing through Arnhem on our way to wherever we land in Germany (flying through Amsterdam saves us about $1500 even adding in train tickets.)

I will definitely report back after our trip in November / December. I appreciate you all!

One last thing. If your travels bring you around Mertz or Verdun France, heading toward Germany you will pass St Avold France. St Avold is the resting place of over 10,000 United State Military killed in WWII. A beautiful cemetery that's honor's the supreme sacrifice these men give to protect us from Dictatorship. I know many people bypass these reminders of the violence war is, but war was no game. Many didn't come back. My brother-in-law is buried there, and he was killed 3 days after the official end of the war. It makes it even tougher to know the fighting continued. I think it is great your son has sure an interest in the war but please show and teach him war not only destroys material things but people's lives that will never be lived.