When I first arrived to Europe, understanding more about World War Two, nazism, and the rise of hitler was one of my main priorities. I’ve learned a substantial amount in my own time, googling and what not, but I knew that learning from primary documents, and visiting historical areas would be powerful and informative experiences.

One of those powerful moments occurred when I visited Cologne’s National Socialist Documentation Centre, which is located at the EL-DE house. From 1935 until 1945, the EL-DE house was the headquarters of the Cologne Gestapo, and it became Gestapo’s center for interrogation, torture and incarceration. At the basement, the museum would take you through cells in which the Gestapo squeezed their prisoners and people they deemed as ‘anti-social.’ I decided to go through the museum with an audio guide. It gave me informative narrations of the location and the documents, describing how 30 plus people would be squeezed into rooms I could only image at most 15. The audio guide described the conditions that made walking through the basement a haunting experience. One of the rooms contained original scratchings on the walls, and other notes that were found in the wall post world war two. Prisoner’s would write about their conditions, their experiences, their previous life. One of the ones that popped out for me, was about a woman who talked about standing in her overcrowded cell, while hearing another women get beaten in the cell next to her. She couldn’t see the occurence, but she could hear her screams, and when the guard hit her, and the blood seeping out of her cell. The writing on the walls showed the range of people that were held prisoners. You could find letters from social democrats, communists, christians, french citizens, children, old folk.

In the first floor, individuals were exposed the rise of nazis started from 1919. There was a red strip on the floor, and every few feet there would be a large panel hanging from the roof. Each panel corresponds to a year, and contained documents from that year. The audio guide described the relevance of each document and the significance of that year. It showed how Nazi’s campaigned racist and discriminatory beliefs to try to stir controversy and confuse German citizens. In 1928 they would put up abundant fliers that read “the jews are our downfall” in Cologne. At the time, they did not have much power in Cologne. The Cologne mayor took down the fliers and conveyed sentiments against nazism. The panels also showed how Nazis tried to convince German society of falsehoods that perpetuated negativity towards groups. The paid a famous boxer to say that he found a mouse in his food at a jewish restaurant, which courts later found that he put it there himself. Hate scandals like this brought nazi party to national attention, and remained in national attention afterwards. Panels also described how the Nazi party wasn’t taken seriously by other parties, and as a result the two major parties, communist and social democrat parties, focused on each other. As Nazi’s gained more and more power, more organizations and individuals gave in into their ruling to maintain their businesses or kind of lifestyle. Many didn’t want the Nazis to take over their business or organization. In 1932, the mayor of Cologne began accepting Nazis.

The combination of the  informative audio guides and the primary documents made the history vivid, which profoundly conveyed the horrors in the rise of the Nazis.

The set up allowed viewers to see the rise of the attacks against Jews and other minority groups, and how the Nazis were able to build morale.
After seizing power the, germans had a party that celebrated victory in cologne, especially celebrating the people who joined the nazi party before 1928, giving them special municipal positions. People soon began to flock towards the nazi party looking for special privileges. At the same time, Jews were banned from playground, forced into retirement, and jewish businesses were boycotted. Work unions were banned, as well as many other organizations. Most organizations adapted to nationalist ideals, and many senior positions were reappointed by nazi party, With every passing year, more and more jewish associations were banned, and more hate scandals were endorsed. In addition, the City was completely mapped out, and people were watched very closely. The city was divided carefully into regions, each containing a boss, and went out of their way to watch people all the way to their bedrooms. Did they raise the nazi flag at a march? Did they interact with a jew? Did they have a soup at the sunday nazi rally, or did they feast in? People who did not follow closely the Nazi ideal were persecuted, and throughout the years, false Nazi propaganda filled the media and streets. Uniformed police were presented as protector of women and children helper of the people, but in reality, uniformed police were expected to use their power to encourage nazi ideals. Expected to marginalize and exclude individuals and groups that did not fit in with the norms of behavior set by nazi party. Gypsies were deported, homosexuals were persecuted, many arbitrarily and without consent of court.

The following rooms jumped in time to post war era, to talk about the officials that were just mentioned in a different time context. The audio guide revealed that after the war Grohe, the Nazi leader in Cologne, was imprisoned for 4 years, let go in the 1950s, and afterwards he set up a business in cologne, and died here, which they describe as typical for German officer. Then they described how most of Cologne’s Gestapo, except for 2, lived life normally after the war. Only 1 was executed, and another sentenced to prison for 10 years in the 80s. The contrast between these facts and the hatred, violence, and cruelty described in the previous room made me stop in the room for a long time. If nearly all the officials that reigned in horrific violence during the war lived freely after the war, how much of that ideology could be passed on through generations? How can a guy preach about racial hygiene in the 1955, what does that mean for modern nazism? The series of facts made it clear that neo nazism could be more powerful of an ideology in today’s global society than I had previously thought.