About the museum
The NMM is part of Stichting Koninklijke Defensiemusea (Royal Defense Museums Foundation). This includes the Navy Museum in Den Helder and Marines Museum in Rotterdam.
Joint mission and vision statement
In the Netherlands we have been living in peace for over seventy years now. As a result, a lot of Dutch people have come to be increasingly removed from the armed forces and our military history. Nonetheless, conflicts around the world we live in have a major impact on our society, now and in the same way they have done for centuries.
To a large degree, the Netherlands have been shaped by our military history. The foreign missions, the Cold War, the Second World war, the Napoleonic era, the Disaster Year, the Eighty Years’ War and many other times of struggle or threat have had a huge influence on our state structure, our borders, our landscape, our culture and our very DNA. It has been a history of great highs and deep lows, of destruction and reconstruction, victories and defeats, all of which continue to make themselves felt in many different ways in our society. To this very day. Our military past is closer to home to us than we may think.
Which is exactly where our remit lies as military museums. We seek to raise historical and modern-day awareness of the impact of war on our society. Of the fact that our armed forces have been closely entwined with the Netherlands for centuries. This teaches our audience that the peace and freedom we enjoy are anything but matter of fact and instills the need for us to (continue to) jointly protect the things we hold precious. In doing so, we take it as our mission to help build a freedom-aware and resilient society.
