During Weihnachten, myself and bee, visited, among other things, Wewelsburg!
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
A Right Teutonic Day Out
Yep, that's the one. It's all within about a 30 km radius. That's why Himmler wanted to turn the area into the Nordic cultural centre of the World. But then, he did have some strange ideas.
The less contentious ones (ie. not the Wewelsburg) do seem to be absolute tourist traps during the holiday season, which is why I was happy to go there out of season as there was hardly any bugger around. Mind you as you can see, the weather was hardly touristy. But then I guess we're a bit odd like that.
The less contentious ones (ie. not the Wewelsburg) do seem to be absolute tourist traps during the holiday season, which is why I was happy to go there out of season as there was hardly any bugger around. Mind you as you can see, the weather was hardly touristy. But then I guess we're a bit odd like that.
Damn, there was a door that went higher up than the terrace just under the statue, but it was locked. Didn't see any bullet holes either. Guess they must have filled the ones lower down. That was rather disrespectful of the crabs though. Mind you, he's a big bugger. Would have taken a lot of lead to dislodge him.
Edited to add:-
Just looked back at the photo. You can see a couple of dings taken out of it. Wonder if that was crab air? The naughty bleeders.
Edited to add:-
Just looked back at the photo. You can see a couple of dings taken out of it. Wonder if that was crab air? The naughty bleeders.
I remember seeing Wewelsburg from afar when going to Paderborn airport about ten years ago (before I was really into this stuff) but somehow the memory of seeing it stuck and I put two and two together years later! That round room with the arch, as far as the rumour (or whatever you want to call it!) I heard was that was where statues of the main members of the party would be placed when they died, and the shape of the room was done so that you could hear any whisper. God knows if it's true though.......
SS-U.f.w. Steinmetz
SBG Mechanics Section - Keeping the Reich rolling since '33!
SBG Mechanics Section - Keeping the Reich rolling since '33!