December 44 Museum

  • recognised tourist attraction
  • Car park
  • Coach park
    1 parking spots
Reviews
4.6/5 (1741 Google reviews)
The December 44 Museum offers a chronological and thematic tour of a turning point in the history of the Second World War, the failure of the German counter-offensive in December 1944 to recapture Belgium, liberated a few months earlier by the Allies.

After bitter fighting in the villages of Cheneux and Stoumont, and finally surrounded at La Gleize by American forces, 800 LAH survivors fled on Christmas night 1944, leaving 135 armoured vehicles behind, including the 69-tonne Royal Tiger that can be seen in front of the museum.

It is this failure that is considered today to be the main cause of the German defeat in the Battle of the Bulge.

While the Americans won the Battle of the Bulge at Bastogne, the Germans lost it at La Gleize.

The December 1944 Museum recounts these tragic events, offering visitors the chance to discover one of Europe's largest collections, an impressive quantity of equipment, most of which was found on the battlefield.

The tour begins in front of the museum with an impressive find: 69 tonnes of metal, a Royal Tiger tank from the 1st SS Panzer. A remnant of the fighting at the site, it is the only one on display in Europe to have taken part in the Battle of the Bulge.

In the museum, first on the first floor and then on the ground floor, you will discover a rich collection of over 5,000 military objects relating to the Battle of the Bulge. Thanks to an active acquisition policy on the part of the owner, this collection is constantly being enriched.