Military Museum of Finland

Founded in 1929 to record and exhibit objects related to Finland’s War of Liberation, The Military Museum of Finland has told the story of war even while enduring multiple relocations due to wars. 

Though the original museum was located in the war archives in Helsinki, it was moved to the island fortress, Suomenlinna, in 1933. Just 6 years later, WWII forced the museum to close, and its collections were put into various storage facilities around Finland. Air raids during the Continuation War against the Soviet Union forced even the museum’s office to move to the countryside. After the war, the museum’s collection bounced around for several decades before finally coming to rest again at Suomenlinna in 2016. 

Interestingly, during WWII the museum organized a series of touring exhibitions around Finland and Sweden as a means to gather funds for war stricken families, show how it was to fight on Finnish side at the front, and to lift up morale among citizens.

The collections of the Military Museum cover over 200,000 artifacts, most of which are organized in research collections or stored. The collections include weapons, uniforms, medals, artworks, flags, vehicles, and many other objects. Currently, the museum is displaying a two part exhibition entitled “Finnish Defense Forces – 100 Years at War and Peace.”