Himmler's Fortress of Fear

In Central Germany's Alma valley, a striking 17th-century castle overlooks the picture-postcard scenery that stretches in every direction; jutting majestically above green trees and bathed in sunshine, it looks more like something out of Cinderella than a former Nazi headquarters.
And yet the story of Wewelsburg Castle is irretrievably intertwined with the insanity and cruelty at the very heart of the Third Reich. In 1933, SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, the second most powerful man in Germany, chose the stronghold as the site of a new Nazi Mecca, a place he planned to transform into the very "centre of the world". His efforts to turn this vision into reality would claim the lives of over 1,200 people. Over the years, Wewelsburg has become a symbol of the alleged Nazi obsession with the occult Some have claimed that Himmler chose the site because it lies on a nexus of 'ley' energies; others have suggested that bizarre rituals were carried out there by cults within the Nazi party. It has even been alleged that the castle's North Tower was such a storehouse of powerful magical energies that all attempts to destroy it at the end of the war were in vain. While the reality is considerably more mundane than some of these outlandish theories would have us believe, it is ultimately no less bizarre. Wewelsburg lies in Westphalia – "the land of Hermann and Widukind", as Himmler himself put it. Himmler had been considering two other sites as centres for the SS, but after viewing Wewelsburg on 3 November 1933, during a tour of the Reich, he made his decision that same night...