'Spiritual castle home' of infamous SS opens to public with £8m exhibition

.dailymail.co.uk | An £8million exhibition chronicling the empire of the SS within the Nazi state opens next month in Germany at the Rennaissance castle that was once its spiritual home.

Organisers of the exhibition say its principal aim is educational rather than glorifying the regime.

The display will be the largest in the world devoted to the history of the Third Reich's murderous elite - and a poignant warning never to allow it to happen again.

The interior of Wewelsburg was modelled by Himmler on the King Arthur legend

Imposing: The castle was leased by the Nazis in 1934

Heinrich Himmler: The SS leader ran the death camps from his castle base

Wewelsburg Castle, funded by a foundation and by the North Rhine-Westphalia government, opens to visitors on April 15.

It is where SS leader Heinrich Himmler brought together his senior officers.

He even installed a round table, coats of arms for his SS 'knights' and pagan ceremonies exalting his movement above all other world religions.

For the first time since the SS used the place the room where Himmler met with underlings to plot the occupation of Eastern Europe, visitors will be allowed into the 'knights' room' where torchlit pagan rituals were carried out.

‘We regard this as an insurance for the future, hoping that comprehensive knowledge of such a criminal group will help preserve lives spent in peace and freedom, thus preventing such a force from ever being used against people again,’ said Manfred Mueller, the district adminstrator for Wewelsburg.

‘Although there was so much more to Wewelsburg than just the SS during its long history, this will be the first permanent exhibition in the world to address not just the crimes of the SS but its idealogical basis and involvement with science, art and its political and cultural ambitions.’

Wewelsburg, built into the shape of a triangle, was intended to be the ‘spiritual centre’ of his SS order and Himmler constructed a concentration camp with slave labourers next to it to provide the manpower necessary to carry out renovations to the structure.

The exhibition will draw on hitherto unseen SS plans, drawings, photographs, archive material, uniforms, letters and diaries and the testimony of servants and SS orderlies.

Formerly the Prince Bishop's chapel, this hall was intended to be used as a meeting place for the 12 most senior SS officers who were Himmler's ‘knights’

The new museum feeds a growing hunger in Germany for knowledge of the Third Reich.

Sites associated with the regime, such as Hitler's mountain-top retreat in Bavaria and the regime's buildings in Berlin and Munich are now firmly on the tourist map.

In his capacity as supreme leader of the SS, Himmler consulted seers, fortune tellers, amassed the biggest private library of witchcraft books outside of the Berlin University - and immersed himself in the legends of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

In 1934, one year after the Nazis took power, he signed a 100-year lease to take over the castle to fashion into a leadership school for the SS.

Infamous: An SS badge and a wartime poster of a knight from the security force

Sites associated with the regime, such as Hitler's mountain-top retreat in Bavaria and the regime's buildings in Berlin and Munich are now firmly on the tourist map.

In 1934, one year after the Nazis took power, he signed a 100-year lease to take over the castle to fashion into a leadership school for the SS.

The focal point of the Wewelsburg complex was the Obergruppenführersaal – a stone-lined chamber in the North Tower in which Himmler had installed an oaken Arthurian round table seating 12.

Formerly the Prince Bishop's chapel, the hall was intended to be used as a meeting place for the 12 most senior SS officers who were his ‘knights’

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'Spiritual castle home' of infamous SS opens to public with £8m exhibition