Wewelsburg . . . a beautiful place with an evil past . .

We recently visited Wewelsburg Castle in northern Germany. During WW2 this castle served as Himmler's (second in Nazi command after Hitler) center for the SS forces, SS-cult site and was intended to be his SS training camp.  The SS, or Schutzstaffel in German, was the "protection squadron" or "defense corps".  As paramilitary organization under the Nazi party it grew to become one of the larges and most powerful organization of the Third Reich.  The SS was responsible for many of the hideous war crimes that took place at the hand of the Nazi party.

The castle was built in the early 1600's as a secondary place of residence for the prince-bishops of the area.  Himmler saw it as a perfect location and signed a 100-year lease with the Paderborn district. While we were able to experience some of the dark history that took place in this castle (the museum of Nazi artifacts, watched interviews with survivors of the concentration camp associated with the rebuilding of the castle, the sacred crypt to house the remains of the 12 SS leaders) I was interested in the facts and history that lead up to the hideous crimes that had taken place at the hands of the SS.  I did a little more digging of my own after returning home and what I found was almost, quite literally, unbelievable.

(a leather chair used in the castle with the SS symbol etched into the leather and swastikas carved into the wood)

(Wewelsburg Castle)

A good buddy I work with, and WW2 historian, had shared with me her experience with Wewelsburg and how "creepy" it was due to the influence of the SS-cult.  Our tour guide did not quite explain the details of this cult and the more I read about it the more satanic influence I found.  In the North tour of Wewelsburg castle Himmler had a crypt dug into the bedrock in which there were 12 pedastals for the 12 remains of the SS leaders.  In the center of the crypt was to be an eternal flame with which they were persuaded could be used to call back the spirits of the Aryan ancestors.  Directly above the location of the would-be eternal flame there is a very large sized swastika in the center of the ceiling.  There was an eerie presence in the crypt. . . it was dark and foreboding.

Above the crypt on the second level was the Generals' Hall. . . a large open room with 12 windows and 12 pillars (some say Himmler was going for the knights of the roundtable effect).  In the center of this room is the symbol of the "black sun" . . . a symbol of occult significance and possibly a variation of a Roman swastika The architects who redesigned the castle during the Nazi era called the axis of this North Tower the "Center of the World".

The renovations of the castle (tearing off the exterior plaster to make the castle more "castle-like", digging a moat around the castle, rebuilding and excavations) were provided by prisoners of the outlying concentration camps of Sachsenhausen and Niederhagen. Eventually there were approximately 3,900 prisoners of the camps and almost a third of them did not survive through their imprisonment.  The gestapo (secret state police) also used this camp for a place of executions.

(model of the Niederhagen concentration camp as there is very little of it left today)

Pictures of prisoners to the concentration camp above and below some of the actual uniforms that prisoners were assigned.  The purple triangle on the front of the shirt would stand for whatever reason this prisoner was put into the concentration camp.  There were many colors.

The more digging into the history of these Nazi leaders the more I realized how evil and terror filled the early years of the 20th century must have been to many.  Besides the atrocities that were done at the hands of Adolf Hitler, most are aware of these, many more were done at the hands of his compatriots such as Henrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich.  During our somewhat tour of the SS museum in Wewelsburg, our guide briefly mentioned that Heydrich was the worst of all the Nazi leaders and if he had lived (injured during an attempted assassination and soon after died from an infection as a result of his injuries at the age of 38) we would have seen many more atrocities during these years.  I took it upon myself to do some research of my own. . . what I found astounded me.  Heydrich was one of the primary architects to the Holocaust; it was his suggestion to the final solution to the Jewish Question that all Jews be deported and exterminated within the German-occupied territories.  Adolf Hitler had christened this man as "the man with the iron heart".  He was attacked in Prague and as a result of his death Hitler had immediately ordered 10,000 Czech to be killed.  He was urged to reconsider and instead completely destroyed the two cities that the would be assassin were supposed to have received aid.  All men over the age of 16 were executed in both cities and the women and children were sent to concentration camps or executed along with the men.  The four women of one city that were found to be pregnant were first sent to a local hospital for a forced abortion.  Only after the procedure were they then sent on to the concentration camp.  13,000 people were arrested, deported or imprisoned.  At least 1,300 were executed.

 

(Nazi Propaganda)

(instruments used to measure the head to verify if a person was of superior genealogy. They measured skull size and nose length, and the color of hair and eyes to determine whether a person  belonged to the true "Aryan race.")

 
 

(Pottery made for Wewelsburg with various Nazi and SS symbols)

 

 (a death head ring . . . a personal gift from Himmler to members of the SS. In 1938 Himmler ordered the return of all rings of dead SS-men and officers to be stored in a chest in Wewelsburg Castle. This was to symbolize the ongoing membership of the deceased in the SS-order.)

 

 

 

I am sure there is much more I could research and say about this trip . . but what I will always remember is senseless loss and suffering of thousands of people.  Sometimes I cannot believe that these things happened. . . it seems unfathomable. . . but they did. . . I am looking right at them