SS Generals Hall in the North Tower of Wewelsburg Castle

SS Generals Hall with Sun Wheel on floor

Photo Credit: www.usmbooks.com

Known as the Obergruppenführersaal in German, or the Hall of Supreme Generals in English, this room on the ground floor of the North tower was designed with 12 pillars arranged in a circle like Stonehenge in England. It was designed to be used as a ceremonial hall for the top 12 generals in the Schutzstaffel or SS, the elite army of Germany in World War II.

Sun Wheel Emblem, May 2008

The photo above shows the dark green Sun Wheel emblem, or Sonnenrad in German, on the gray-blue marble floor of the SS Generals hall inside the North tower at Wewelsburg castle. Since the end of World War II, this emblem has been called the Black Sun Wheel.

The grandiose plan, envisioned by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, was for the axis of the North tower to be the "Center of the World," or "Mittelpunkt der Welt" in German, after the "final victory" of Germany in World War II.

Today, tourists are not allowed to walk inside the Generals hall, and can only view the room through the bars of an iron gate across the entrance, as shown in the photo below.

Iron door across entrance to Hall, May 2008

The Generals Hall was never finished and it was never used by the SS generals; the reconstruction of the North tower was stopped in 1943 at the time that Germany first started losing to the Soviet Union in World War II, and all work had to be concentrated on winning the war.

SS Vault (Crypt)

Witches Dungeon

Niederhagen Concentration Camp

District Museum

Castle

North Tower

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This page was created on July 16, 2008