WHILE ENTERING THE CITY of Solingen on your way to the Deutsches Klingenmuseum, the German Blade Museum, you will see the words “Klingenstadt Solingen” written on the town sign: “The City of Blades, Solingen”. This sounds like an official title, but it is also meant to evoke a specific narrative of the region, the town and its edged weapons and cutlery. This story, which began in the fourteenth century, continues today. It tells of the history of the first smiths, of their coveted blades found in the armouries of monarchs and rulers all over Europe, and of the magic words “ME FECIT SOLINGEN”. It tells of the sign of the running wolf, of privileges for blade makers’ guilds, or of the Solingen swords that were crossed on the battlefields of European wars. It is the story of overseas exports, of the weapon smiths of the German Empire, and of modern-day fencing blades; a narrative not short of dramatic episodes. And it lives on even though the manufacturing of blades has lost much of its significance for the city since the structural changes in the 1970s.

The German Blade Museum is the place where this story is not only preserved, but also continued. Whenever people take the objects of the collection as the direct focus of their research, the tale goes on.

In this regard, the conference The Sword – Form and Thought, held on the 19 and 20 November 2015 during the exhibition of the same title, was a true “festival of storytelling”. It underlined the Blade Museum's role, both in Solingen and beyond, as a centre for research, reflection and debate about blades. Furthermore, the excellent contributions and the lively discussions brought new inspiration to the museum and allowed for fruitful networking.

The German Blade Museum wishes to express its gratitude to all the speakers of the event for sharing the results of their research. I would like to personally thank Lisa Deutscher, Mirjam Kaiser and my colleague, Dr Sixt Wetzler, for the idea to bring the conference to this museum, for the concept of the event and its organisation and for making this publication possible.