Wewelsburg (11/16/13)

Today was a military history tour that was more to my liking (for lack of a better term). This one had to do with World War II, and more specifically with the SS which had more to do with my past research than some of the other military history tours. That being said, I do have to admit, I have enjoyed these tours and learned more than I thought I would. Some of the pictures on today's blog are not mine. (some are from the 1930s and some are from the north tower, where you are not allowed to take pictures, but you can purchase this handy dandy book and cd with pictures..including documents, in the Wewelsburg museum shop, and I did, so I would have some to use...of course they are also widely available on google, but getting them from the place seemed a whole lot better an idea).

The tour today was located in Wewelsburg.  This is a little village north of the Kaiserslautern area (not far from Dortmond and Munster (about 4 hours from home). This is a really pretty area (although there are few areas in Germany that aren't pretty). The main reason for the tour was to see the Wewelsburg castle and the museum. Despite the 6 am departure time, the day had promise of being a lovely day; and it was. 

When we arrived we first checked out the castle (or at least the part we could get in). Parts of the castle are used as a youth hostel and the north tower is only accessible through the museum.

                                            

 

Guard gate.

 

                     

 Wewlsburg Castle has been in existence since medieval times, although the actual age seems to be some what of a mystery. Bishop Salentin von Isenburg researched the history of Wewelsburg Catle in 1574 and it appears that the castle was built during the Charlemagne time (770-800) as a Saxon castle. The ownership of the castle changed various times, as did the structure itself.

The castle has some remnants of its beginnings:

medieval window

 The main section of the castle includes artifacts from various stages in the castles history:

Witch's hanging rope. Legend suggests that the castle held thousands of accused witches during the 17th century, who were tortured and executed within its walls.

dungeon area

                                                           

Yes, I know, you might be asking why? Well because there is just some strange thing about knowing what a medieval bathroom is like.

                                           

 It might not be easy to tell by looking at side walls, but this castle is actually a triangular building...

it is easier to see in the courtyard...

In November 1933 Heinrich Himmler visited Wewelsburg for the first time.He decided that it was a great location for his plans ideological center for the Schutzstaffel  (aka SS). In 1936 Wewelsburg was purchased and work began to prepare it for use by the SS. The castle had damages that needed to be repaired. Conveniently, there were 100 prisoners in the nearby concentration camp and Himmler was given permission for the prisoners to be used to perform the renovations on the castle. (The size and number in the camp grew with the need for more workers) Himmler's plan was that the castle be part of a bigger group of buildings that would be used for education of SS officers.The plans for the castle additions included building a radius several hundred meters around the castle with buildings a ramparts. Directly in the middle of this circle would sit the north tower. (the construction would make the castle resemble and spear pointing to the center...the center of the new world according to their thoughts).

 

Over 3900 prisoners from the camp (Niederhagen-Wewelsburg) were forced to work on the extensive construction around the castle. At least 1285 people died as a result of the work and prison conditions (to include SS cruelty; at least 55 people were purposely shot and murdered). While the camp was not on the same scale as say Auschwitz, it did serve as an execution place of the Gestapo.

The plans for this construction would take until the 1960s. Needless to say, the reconstruction of the castle and subsequent additional buildings was not completed. Today the north tower is missing the roof that would match the other two towers of the castle and the additional buildings were never built.

Originally intended to be a training school for SS officers, it was later decided to remodel the castle and turn it into a more exclusive meeting site for the highest SS officers. The plaster was knocked off and the moat deepened so the castle would look more foreboding and fortress-like. Nordic symbols and other ornamentation were used in the rooms of the Wewelsburg. 

An example of the runes that Himmler (and the Nazi party) used is the SS symbol itself. The S (looking somewhat like a lightning bolt) is the rune for victory; it is called a sig rune or siegrune.  The siegrune stood for victory so the double sigrune meant double victory. On a side note, while most people thing that the sigheil (raising of the hand and shouting of the phase) was meant as an adoration for Hitler, it was more a confirmation of the idea of victory. The siegrune is still slightly visible on one surface of the Wewelsburg Castle (although it is possible it is visible elsewhere on the castle, the only place I saw it somewhat, other than on furniture, pins etc, was on one spot)...the guard gate/post.

Although almost obliterated, part of the symbol is still visible.

It is a well known fact that many aspects of the Nazi Party are based on the occult. This castle and its remnants seem to attest to the mystical beliefs of many of those in charge, from the runes used in their symbols to the idea that if the right person (being of the right height, eye color, hair color, age, etc) stood on the black sun (symbol in the floor in the north tower) then they would be imparted with some mystical enlightenment/power.

For this blog, we will go back on track as to what we did on the tour, because our visit was a little disjointed. First we saw part of the castle, as shown above, to include some of the medieval aspects, then we went to lunch. We went to a restaurant(Ottens hof) that was originally a youth hostel, then became a meeting place for SS officers, and after the war, became a restaurant. It had a lot of character.

This is a picture of the place back in the 1930s

After lunch we strolled back over by the Castle and went into the museum. This museum has many floors of artifacts and information (unforunately, most is in German so unless you can read German, it is a difficult endeavor...they do have little ipods with the tour of the museum in English, but we had a big group so I opted to just go through and see what I could find, leaving the ipod for someone else to use.) The exhibit is filled with all sorts of SS artifacts (after all it is a museum of SS ideology), but there are other items including some interviews with people who had been in the concentration camp and worked on the castle reconstruction.

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."

There were, of course other artifacts in the museum, so those were just a few examples. Of the ones above, I think I found the variations of the swastika the most interesting, as they attempted to use different decoration with it involved. Another interesting thing was the death head rings...which each officer was given when accepted into the SS. There was a specific design on the ring (as shown below). Funny thing about those rings, there was a box of the rings supposedly in the Castle when it was taken by the Americans. The Americans say that they found no such box, and the Germans say the Americans took it...but who knows. There were many rings in the castle because Himmler had ordered that the rings of dead SS men and officers be returned to the castle to show their ongoing membership in the SS organization.

Once you go through part of the museum you can take the path that goes into the moat area and then enter the north tower.

This bridge was a newer addition in 1934 when the moat level was dropped.

The north tower was the mystical area of the castle, as I understand it. It mainly consists of the crypt and the general's meeting room. In the crypt there was to be an eternal flame. Around the flame are pedestals where the ashes from the 12 top SS leaders were to be kept.

Although this picture shows the crypt as a bright area, it's not. It is dark and there is an echo and has a somewhat ominous feeling to it. You can see in the center where the eternal flame was supposed to go. Directly above on the ceiling is a medallion with a stylized swastika on it. (this is one of the pictures from the book/cd that I bought so it does not look exactly like it did for our visit. Below is how it looked on our visit there, with kind of creepy paintings hung (which I got pictures of in another part of the museum as they also had copies in a special room where you could take pictures).

the medallion on the ceiling.

These are the paintings around the crypt:

Above the crypt is the SS general's meeting room. In the center of the room is the "Black Sun" while this is the second floor of the tower (by its present day entrance) it is actually on ground floor, since the crypt is on the same level as the bottom of the moat.

Some believe that if the right person (right height, weight, hair color, eye color, age, etc) stands in the center of the black sun they will be imparted with great knowledge/power.

The symbol of the Black Sun is purported to unite the three most important symbols of Nazi ideology - the sun wheel, the swastika and the stylized victory rune." and that it is symbolic in its form representing "the twelve SS Knights of The Order of the Death's Head and their three retainers" 

As a means of levity, this is how the general's meeting room looks today...with the (tongue in cheek) SS bean bag chairs, it really doesn't bring about thoughts of the evil that was planned and perpetrated here. (as with the other pictures from the north tower, I did not take these pictures since that is against the rules...but thank heaven for cds with pictures and such)

On a side note, while Himmler was the leader of the SS, his second in command was the truly sadistic and atrocious of the two.  Hitler had his henchmen and idea men, and one was this second in command of the SS, Reinhard Heydrich. Heydrich was said to be one of the worst of all Nazi leaders and had he lived there would have been far worse atrocities in the war than there were. (Heydrich died a rather painful, and apropo death. There was an assassin attempt on his life which he survived, actually trying to chase down his assailants after he had been shot in the chest. What ultimately killed him was an infection caused by part of his uniform that had entered the wound.) Heydrich was one of the primary architects of the Holocaust. He was the one who came up with the "final solution" to the "Jewish Question" which meant that all Jews be deported and exterminated within the German occupied territories. Hitler called him the "man with the iron heart." Hitler so admired him that when Heydrich was attacked in Prague, the attack resulting in his death, that Hitler ordered 10000 Czechs to be killed. Upon reconsideration, it was determined that instead, the two cities that the would be assassins received help from would be destroyed. From these cities, all men were to be executed and the women and children were taken to concentration camps or executed. Proving the sick thought process of the Nazis, there were four women in one of the cities who were pregnant. The women were taken to the hospital and forced to undergo abortions and then were sent to the concentration camp. In total as a retaliation for Heydrich's death, 13000 people were arrested, deported or imprisoned with at least 1300 of those people executed.

A few other pictures of the castle and close by before we left.

Looking down below the castle

Before going back for the day, we stopped by a cemetery that has many of the SS men (of course the graves arent marked as such, but going by the age and the year of death, one can assume).  This cemetery also has 10 soldiers from WW I. the cemetery is the Kriegsgräberstätte Böddeken (there were some really interesting carved statue/boulders near the front of the cemetery that I thought I got pictures of but it seems I 

didnt...bummer, as they are quite interesting). 

So that was the trip this weekend. Next weekend will be a bit less intense...a Christmas market.