Showing posts with label Bonn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bonn. Show all posts

Sites in Rhineland and Westphalia

Bonn

The Rheinhotel Dreesen on the Rhine River at Bad Godesberg in Bonn hosted meetings between Hitler and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on 21-23 September 1938, regarding Hitler's proposed annexation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia; before he flew to Bad Godesberg, Chamberlain aptly remarked that he was setting out "to do battle with an evil beast."

At a convention of SA and ϟϟ leaders here on August 19 1933, Hitler delivered a two-and-a-half-hour address, commenting, among other things, on the relationship between the SA and the Reichswehr. Eventually the hotel would be the site of Hitler's planning for the purge of the SA and its leader Ernst Röhm in June 1934.
It was from this hotel, run by Herr Dreesen, an early Nazi crony of Hitler, that the Fuehrer had set out on the night of June 29-30, 1934, to kill Roehm and carry out the Blood Purge. The Nazi leader had often sought out the hotel as a place of refuge where he could collect his thoughts and resolve his hesitations.
Shirer (nb.349) Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich
 
From a 1942 postcard
Bonner Münster on Jun6, 1941 and today 

Cologne
Reichsadler found on the Autobahnbrücke Rodenkirchen

Rodenkirchen is a southern borough of Cologne.
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On the night of 30/31 May 1942 the inner city of Cologne was almost totally destroyed by a 1000-bomber raid. After that it was regularly bombarded until 1945. On the right is an image from a series of stamps, showing Sir Arthur Harris, with a Lancaster bomber from his command. It was his plan that brought about the indiscriminate area bombing of German cities, destroying houses and civilian morale as much as factories and military targets. As he stated,

The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.

Cologne after the war with its cathedral seemingly the only intact building

Cologne, Germany from aerial photos taken by the Nazis to assist in rebuilding plans once Germany won the war. The photos were recently discovered in an attic by the daughter of an employee of Speer's building inspection department.
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Nazi leaders in the bombed Cologne Cathedral with footage of the city ruins immediately after the war


Inside, under a choir-stall seat, a judensau is still allowed to remain. On the left a Jew holds up a pig by the front leg whilst a second Jew feeds it whilst a third kneels down in order to drink from its teats. In the right quatrefoil a pig with three piglets is knocked out of a trough. From the right a Jew leads a boy who is distinguished by a nimbus with a cross which continues to trot out the mediaeval lie about Jewish ritual murder of Christian children.

Gestapo Headquarters
EL-DE Haus, now officially known as the National Socialist Documentation Centre, the former headquarters of the Gestapo and now a museum documenting the Third Reich .

The building was at first the business premises of the jeweller Leonard Dahlen - hence the name. In 1934, the Nazis seized the building from him and turned it into the headquarters of the secret police, Gestapo. Ironically, the building survived the Allied bombing of Cologne, while 90% of the city was destroyed (see first picture above). After the bombings, the basements of the building, which had been used as torture rooms, were used to store wartime files and paperwork.

In 2006, the National Socialist Documentation Centre was awarded the Best in Heritage award, which is given to select museums. The only other German museum to have won the prize is the Buddenbrook Museum in Lübeck.
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Video from inside the museum

Inside the basement to the Gestapo cells:

Some poignant examples of messages prisoners left behind on the cell walls:

Fascism today in a UN Security Council member's Capital:
Photo taken here in Peking of the entrance to the Juyuan Hotel near the Beijing South Station which contains in its storerooms one of communist China's "black gaols"- unlike the Nazis, the Chinese Gestapo keeps its victims hidden away in secret. One such prisoner in a cell which holds "people who have committed no crime and have simply come to the capital to exercise their legal right to petition the central government."

The Kölner Zeughaus in the 1930s and today. The armoury was built by the Imperial Town of Cologne as the weapons arsenal around 1600 in Dutch Renaissance style. Today, it serves as the Kölnisches Stadtmuseum, focussing on every day life in Cologne from the Middle Ages until today. 
The Heumarkt in 1938 and today
The façade of the church of  St. Maria in der Schnurgasse in the 1930s and today

From Adolf-Hitler-Platz to Ebertplatz

Dortmund 
Book burning in front of the Amtshaus
The former Gestapo headquarters (and way station for those being sent to concentration camps) today serves as the site for the exhibition Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Steinwache.
Inside is a reminder that from 1933 to 1945, over 66,000 people were imprisoned, some 30,000 of them for "political reasons".
The hauptbahnhof in 1944 and today 
Neuwied
Linking Weißenthurm and Neuwied over the Rhine, what is now known as the Raiffeisenbrücke replaces the destroyed Hermann-Göring-Brücke.

Krefeld
Prewar postcard of Krefeld showing Adolf-Hitlerstrasse and Adolf-Hitler-Brücke

The photo on the left is a remarkable historic document showing crowds waiting for Hitler in June 1934 at the Krefeld main railway station. Due to the Röhm putsch Hitler called off the visit.

 
Adolf-Hitler-Strasse, now Stephanstrasse

The Uerdinger Rhine bridge officially being renamed the Adolf Hitler bridge in 1936. It was reconstructed in its original form after its destruction during the war.

Essen
Renamed Adolf-Hitler-Platz in 1933 and serving as the main site for nazi demonstrations in Essen, it reverted back to Burgplatz after the war.
Gymnasium Essen-Borbeck- the centre photo shows the school celebration for the re-establishment of the compulsory military service on 5 April 1935. The speaker is Head master and Propagandawart Walter PfeilIt.
 „Heldengedenktag" in the auditorium on 11 March 1933, „Day of Potsdam" 21 March 1933, „Ehrung des Lieblingskomponisten des Führers"- (Wagnerfestival as Hitler's favourite composer) 3 April 1933 and „Schlageter-Feier" 27 May 1933
May Day 1933 with portraits of Friedrich the Great, Hindenburg and Hitler, „Saarbefreiungsfeier" 1 March 1935, “Celebration for memory of the seizure of power” on 30 January 1936 and „Heldengedenktag" March 7 1936 with memorial to the dead of the Great War.

Erwitte

Two 1937 postcards showing the Reichsschulungsburg den NSDAP
The Horst-Wessel-Halle, part of a school complex for the DAF designed by Julius Schulte-Frohlinde
Munster

Nazi eagle actually commandeered to decorate a Munster shopping centre.
At the top of the city's Hauptklinik at 56-58 Esmarchstrasse is a Nazi eagle with the caduceus replacing the swastika.The relief itself dates from 1937-8 and the warriors on the Tympanonrelief created by Hermann Kissenkötter are now lacking their weapons.

Düsseldorf (Westphalia)
The Reichsausstellung Schaffendes Volk (The Reich's Exhibition of a Productive People) of 1937 was held in the North Park district of Düsseldorf, Germany, along one mile of the Rhine shoreline. It was opened on May 8, 1937 by Hermann Göring. Through October of the same year it attracted more than six million visitors. Planned in secret and deliberately designed as a rival to the 1937 International Exposition of Modern Life in Paris, the exhibition was meant to showcase the domestic accomplishments of the National Socialists in new housing, art, and science during their four years in power. The fair's director was Dr. Ernst Poensgen. The exhibition was laid out in four main divisions: industry and economics, land utilization and city planning, material progress (with an emphasis on progress in synthetics), and arts and culture.

The two huge horses and horsemen sculpted out of granite for the Reichsaustellung Schaffendes Volk. Due to wrangles the exhibition, opened in the presence of Goering, ran with these monumental statues in an unfinished state - the right hand one extremely so. It was only in 1940 that the sculptor, Edwin Scharff, was allowed to complete the project, having suffered a ban at the hands of the regime in the meantime.
The fountains here were the centre piece of the exhibition. This was the so-called Wasserachse, which was the centrepiece of the Gardenschau , surrounded by 12 Sculptures. In the background, the former Ehrenhalle der Partei which contained the administrative offices for the Reichs Exhibition, ticket booths and a restaurant.
The statues carved for the exhibition may still be seen, such as Zimmermann's 'Bauer,' 'Bäuerin,' Hoselmann's 'Falkner' and Zschorsch's 'Winzerin' shown here. There were originally a dozen but some are missing.
Düsseldorf's Adolf Hitler Platz has now reverted back to Graf-Adolf-Platz

Another place name that has reverted Albert-Leo-Schlageter-Allee to Königs-Allee
Polizeipräsidium
The Nazi eagle over the entrance of police headquarters at Jürgensplatz remains, but is covered by a plaque reading "All are equal before the law." Built from 1929 to 1932, this served as headquarters for representatives of the ϟϟ Upper Section West, the 20th SS regiment, the 6th ϟϟ Rider standard and the 4th ϟϟ Lieutenant Colonel.
In June 1933, the ϟϟ-group leader Fritz Weitzel was appointed to President-Polizeiprä. Weitzel was had joined the ϟϟ at the age of 22, and was only 29 years old when he was police chief although he was considered in Nazi circles as incompetent.
From 30 January 1933 to 8th May 1945, 7101 men and 851 women imprisoned as opponents of the Nazis. Many prisoners were handed over to the Gestapo for interrogation.

Schweigen-Rechtenbach (Rhineland-Palatinate)


From a 1940 postcard
The Weintor, built in the autumn of 1936, marks the start of the Weinstrasse in the south of the Palatinate, less than a mile from the French border. The swastika in the eagle's talons has been defaced but can still be made out.

Wewelsburg (North Rhine-Westphalia)
 

While travelling through Westphalia during the Nazi electoral campaign of January 1933, Himmler was profoundly affected by the atmosphere of the region, with its romantic castles and the mist- (and myth-) shrouded Teutoburger Forest. After deciding to take over a castle for SS use, he returned to Westphalia in November and viewed the Wewelsburg castle, which he appropriated in August 1934 with the intention of turning it into an ideological-education college for SS officers. Although at first belonging to the Race and Settlement Main Office, the Wewelsburg castle was placed under the control of Himmler's Personal Staff in February 1935.  
Alan Baker (98-99) Invisible Eagle: The History of Nazi Occultism

Wewelsburg is apparently the only triangular-shaped castle in Germany, built at the beginning of the 17th century. In 1934 Himmler signed a 100-mark 100-year lease with the Paderborn district, intending to renovate and redesign the castle as a Reichsführerschule ϟϟ after Karl Maria Wiligut advised him based on the Westphalian legend of the "Battle at the birch tree". It was to be enlarged to a ϟϟ-Führerschule. Besides physical training, a uniform ideological orientation of the leading cadre of the ϟϟ was to be realised. Courses for ϟϟ-officers in pre- and early history, mythology, archaeology, astronomy and art were intended and, from 1939, the castle was also furnished with miscellaneous objects of art, including prehistoric objects, objects of past historical eras, and works of contemporary sculptors and painters (mainly works by such artists as Karl Diebitsch, Wolfgang Willrich, and Hans Lohbeck—that is, art comporting with the aesthetics of National Socialism). In 1938 Himmler ordered the return of all Death's head rings (Totenkopfringe) of dead ϟϟ-men and officers to be stored in a chest in the castle as a symbol of the ongoing membership of the decedent in the ϟϟ-Order. The whereabouts of the approximately 11,500 rings is still unknown.


Himmler's plans included making it the "centre of the new world" ("Zentrum der neuen Welt") following the "final victory" but only detailed plans and models exist. It was to be finished within twenty years. The complex was to be a centre of the "kind accordant" religion (artgemäße Religion) and a representative estate for the ϟϟ-Führerkorps (SS leader corps) If the plans had been realized, the entire village of Wewelsburg and adjacent villages would have disappeared. The population was to be resettled and the valley flooded.

Inside the vault at the very top of the roof, a swastika remains. This "vault, built after the model of Mycenaean domed tombs was hewn into the rock which possibly was to serve for some kind of commemoration of the dead. The room is unfinished. The floor was lowered 4.80 meters. In the middle of the vault probably a bowl with an eternal flame was planned. In the middle of the floor a gas pipe is embedded. Around the presumed place for the eternal flame at the wall twelve pedestals are placed. Their meaning is unknown. Above the pedestals wall niches existed. In the zenith of the vault a swastika (which ends run out in an ornamental way) is walled in. Despite its antisemitic connotation the swastika (Hakenkreuz) was also understood as "the symbol of the creating, acting life" (das Symbol des schaffenden, wirkenden Lebens) and as "race emblem of Germanism" (Rasseabzeichen des Germanentums). The vault has special acoustics and illumination.

NS Ordensburg VogelsangOrdensburg Vogelsang is a former national socialist estate placed at the former military training area in the national park Eifel in North Rhine-Westphalia. The landmarked and completely preserved estate was used by the National Socialists between 1936 and 1939 as an educational centre for future leaders. Since 1 January 2006 the area is open to visitors. It is one of the largest architectural relics of National Socialism. The gross area of the landmarked buildings is 50,000 m². It remains an example of the rural version of 1930's Nazi herrschaftsarchitektur. Vogelsang was built by architect Clemens Klotz as a training centre for the young nazi elite. It is situated on a terraced hillside above an artificial lake in the Eiffel nature reserve. Its design was based on the image of the feudal castle or "Ordensburg". In 1950 the British army generously offered Vogelsang to Belgium. In 2006 the military left and the complex was opened to the public. Plans are being made to turn the complex into a conference and exhibition centre, with proper respect for its historical significance.
more info: www.vogelsang-ip.de

As might be expected, intellectual standards were very low and attendance to the Ordensburg did little to foster education. Students went to each of the four castles for a year at a time. At the academy at Krössinsee, the first year, the stress was on the study of racial science, athletics, boxing and gliding. Great attention was given to horse riding because that gave the Junkers the feeling of being able to dominate a living creature. The second year, at Sonthofen, the emphasis was on athletics, parachute jumping, mountain climbing and skiing. The third year, at Vogelsang, the students received political and military instruction, and physical training. One of the tests that year was the Tierkampf, combat with bare hands against wild dogs. The fourth year, at the prestigious Teutonic castle Marienburg, the Junkers were expected to obtain their final military formation, and political and racial indoctrination.
Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage, Hitler Youth, 1922-1945: An Illustrated History (97-98)
On the left, the building housed the female service staff whilst that on the right formed part of the complex called Forum East which contained at one time an auditorium and ballroom, dining hall and kitchens.
This is the water tower and high point of the complex, meant to resemble a castle keep. Below the reservoir a cult room was situated for use in Nazi ritual. The photo on the right shows the dormitories called Kameradschaftshauser.
The Burgschanke, left, a restaurant and banquet hall for the senior staff and on the right, so-called Eagle Square

Eagle on a wall above the Assembly Square
Most of the sculptures in Vogelsang - "Fackelträger" (torch bearer), "Der deutsche Mensch" (The German Man), "Adler" (Eagle) and the "Sportlerrelief" (sportsmen-relief) - were created by Willy Meller:
The white area next to "Fackelträger" (torch bearer) covers up references to Hitler which originally read: "Ihr seid die Fackelträger der Nation. Ihr tragt das Licht des Geistes voran im Kampfe für Adolf Hitler." (You are the torch bearers of the nation; You carry on the light of the spirit in the fight for Adolf Hitler.) The architect of the monument was Clemens Klotz (1886–1969), the statue was made by Willy Meller (1887–1974). On top of the monument a fire could be lit.

Sportlerrelief (sportsmen-relief)
Equestrian statue at the main gate and surviving reichsadler
In contrast with the Napolas, the castles were not linked with German military traditions, and the system failed miserably. The Ordensburgen never attracted a full complement of students despite the financial inducement and the prestige of attendance. According to some estimates, half the avail- able places remained vacant. Even in the most fanatical NSDAP circles, the product of the Ordensburgen were occasionally considered too ruthless and arrogant.

An Höhenmarke at a church in the Weserbergland.

Hermannsdenkmal (North Rhine-Westphalia)


Postcard with the caption roughly translated
Where once the leader of the Germans released the German land from the enemy
Blow Hitler´s victory flags, powerfully into the new age.
This monument in North Rhine-Westphalia commemorates the Cherusci war chief Hermann (Arminius) at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in which the Germanic tribes under Arminius recorded a decisive victory in 9 AD over three Roman legions under Varus. Of Arminius, Hitler remarked in rejecting "Czech aspirations for the creation of a national army" that
To teach a nation the handling of arms is to give it a virile education. If the Romans had not recruited Germans in their armies, the latter would never have had the opportunity of becoming soldiers and, eventually, of annihilating their former instructors. The most striking example is that of Arminius, who became Commander of the Third Roman Legion. The Romans instructed the Third in the arts of war, and Arminius afterwards used it to defeat his instructors. At the time of the revolt against Rome, the most daring of Arminius's brothers-in-arms were all Germanics who had served some time or other in the Roman legions.

Herford

This gravestone prompted controversy recently when it was apparently only now realised that it sported a swastika, a banned symbol here in Germany (despite covering numerous official state buildings here as checking out the link to hakenkreuzes will show). For everyone else, however, up to three years in gaol or a fine is the punishment stipulated by the the Penal Code. The question of course in this case is against whom would this punishment be directed?
The grave itself is to the memory of Hermann Pantförder, a member of the NSDAP since 1925 who died in a car accident on the way from Bielefeld to Herford. At his death, he led over 1,000 storm troopers and was responsible for a number of NSDAP buildings in the area.
In the end, the matter appears to have been resolved when persons unknown took it upon themselves to partially chip the offending symbol away.

 Bochum
Another example of vandalism directed towards a relic of the Nazi era was this kriegerdenkmal honouring the fallen of the 4th Magdeburg Infantry Regiment No. 67 of the Great War. Based on a design by the sculptor Walter Becker and inaugurated in August 1935, it consisted of Ruhr sandstone brick, in front of which were two larger than life warriors who symbolised the imperial army and the Nazi Wehrmacht. The monument was an example of Nazi martial arts and his consecration was an attempt to prepare  the population ideologically for future military conflict.
In February 1983, an unknown party sawed through the bronze figures; they have not been replaced.
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