Fortified door to the basement bunker
Cologne is a city filled with museums. I decided to go to one museum called the El-De – which is really just the initials of the man who built the building – LD. It was rented from him by the Third Reich in 1935 and was the headquarters of the Cologne Gestapo until 1945. It is now the city of Cologne’s Documentation Centre on National Socialism. I spent about 4 hours there – it was fascinating. It is a pretty non-descript building from the outside but full of information on the inside. It also has kept in their original state the Memorial Gestapo Prison in the basement where prisoners’ inscriptions are sill on the wall.
Copies of the inscriptions and their translations
I was surprised how busy this museum was. I have been in a lot of museums in my travels and this was one of the busiest. It is very intense. You have to use the audio guide if you don’t speak German, which is fine because it offers a whole bunch of extra information that is not in print. One of the most interesting points to me was that after the war information and details about the Third Reich were for the most part being “swept under the carpet” or surpressed by the Germans. It was a man – whose name I can’t remember – who raised awareness about this surpression by walking around Cologne with cardboard placards telling of the use of this building and that evidence still remained. He got access to the basement and found loads of files and the original inscriptions in the walls and lobbied the city government to open the building to the public. The city council agreed and two years later it was opened. In this way the Centre debotes itself to commemorating the victims of National Socialism and to researching and transmitting the history of Cologne under the Nazis.
Cell doors lie open - a memory of the past
It was an intensely moving place and very educational. I think it is so important for museum’s like this to exist so that we can remember these things. Humans have such short memories and it is important to recall what really happened so that it does not get repeated.
The outside of the El-De building, ironically, one of the few buildings not destroyed during the bombings.
Although not nearly as large, the experience reminded me of my visit to Alcatraz in San Francisco – also a very interesting museum.
A single cell where sometimes up to 10 or 12 people would be crammed.
I would have found that museum very interesting also – enjoyed all the information you gave. Can’t imagine 12 people crammed into that little space.
How some people must have suffered.
As evidenced by the inscriptions on the walls suffering was definitely commonplace.
By the way how did you know Catherine – did you meet her at University. That should be exciting to meet her after 23 years.
No – I met Cathrine in my time in Dijon, France – and she came to visit me too in 1988
Sorry to say, but this is one museum I could not visit for obvious reasons….