Interesting place, near to Paderborn. There was the usual exhibition of all the nasty things the Nazis did in the gatehouse and also the plans for the castle and village itself, ie. the attempts of Himmler to turn it into the centre of the universe (once they'd kicked out the locals, of course). Unfortunately for him, the war stopped his plans and ultimately the castle was destroyed by explosions and fire to prevent it falling into the hands of the advancing Yanks, which was a bit selfish of them. However, the tower to the right of our picture survived fairly intact. This was the point around which all the plans revolved.
Us outside the castle:-
The castle was rebuilt and now houses a youth hostel and museum which deals in the local history from prehistoric to modern, but strangely, doesn't mention much about it's mid 20th Century use. In fact the North tower isn't part of the tourist route, but you can get to it. Through the lower garden terrace you can get to the "crypt" which is the lower storey of the castle. Entrance is barred by a gate, but as you can see, you can certainly take a looksee. I guess they didn't want any weird ceremonies taking place without the officials knowing.
Up in the roof is still to be found the large obvious Hakenkreuz:-
And to this day, no one knows quite what Himmler was up to in this place.......
Upstairs in the same tower, accessable fron the courtyard is the Obergruppenführersaal which is believed to be connected with the myth of the Holy Grail and has a mural on the floor of the Schwarze Sonne, the black sun of ancient Nordic rites which is just about visible in the photograph:-
After that we went on to see the Externsteine near Detmold which was also integral to Himmler's ideas of setting up a new "pseudo" religion based on Nordic rituals. It was bloody wet and windy, but that was just as well, as it appears to be a complete tourist trap in summer, unlike Wewelsburg, for some strange reason.
And finally, onto see Herman the German ( Arminius 9 AD ), who united the Germanic tribes and repelled the Roman legions. But the weather was so crap this is all we could see from the tower:-
But it wasn't all dusty history. Oh no, we did a bit of culture. Now was that Schwarzbier or Kellerbier? Oh the agony.
So it was a bit like visiting Stonehenge and Avebury, but without the bloody hippies.
Serious scholars may want to visit:-
http://www.ruedigersuenner.de
