DRESDEN, GERMANY – A modern wedge of glass, concrete and steel rips through a 135-year-old former armory building for the armies of Kaiser Wilhelm I, its silvery shimmer and stark lines contrasting sharply with the neoclassical building that it now bisects. American architect Daniel Libeskind knew when he won the bid to redesign Dresden’s Museum of Military History that he wanted to create a radical departure — something symbolic of Germany’s rigid authoritarian past giving way to the liberal democracy of today. While the modern addition contains more thematic exhibits with a focus on societal forces and the human impulses that lead to violence, the original building presents German military history in chronological order.