This article undertakes a rhetorical analysis of two European armed forces museums (the National Army Museum in London and the Bundeswehr Military History Museum in Dresden) in order to show how such institutions provide a space for the negotiation of civil–military relations in ‘post-military’ societies. It argues that both museums construct a world of military professionalism that shields the soldier from potential criticism in the context of contemporary armed conflicts, while encouraging the civilian visitor as democratic citizen to accept their responsibility for the deployment of the armed forces as a matter of policy. The article nevertheless highlights differences in the depiction of soldiers and of warfare in general in both museums, which in turn point to differences in the discourse of war in the UK and Germany.

本文对两个欧洲武装部队博物馆（伦敦的国家陆军博物馆和德累斯顿的德国联邦国防军军事历史博物馆）进行了修辞分析，以展示这些机构如何为“后”时期的军民关系谈判提供空间。军事社团。它认为，这两个博物馆都构建了一个军事专业化的世界，保护士兵在当代武装冲突的背景下免受潜在的批评，同时鼓励平民游客作为民主公民接受他们对部署武装部队的责任作为一项政策. 尽管如此，这篇文章强调了两个博物馆在描述士兵和一般战争方面的差异，这反过来又指出了英国和德国在战争话语方面的差异。