Former Nazi college reopens as museum to prevent extremism

A new exhibition at the Vogelsang College, a former Nazi School in western Germany, opens on September 11 as part of a 45-million-euro ($50-million) project to secure the crumbling buildings. The exhibition includes this model of a bas-relief depicting idealized athletes at Vogelsang. The damaged original still stands at the sports ground of the site.

The original bas-relief "Athletes" can be found in the sports ground of Vogelsang College. Most of the 2,000 exclusively male students schooled there and at another Nazi college in Krössinsee in what is now Poland came from lower-middle-class backgrounds and had suffered unemployment in the recession that preceded Hitler's rise. The curriculum consisted largely of physical exercise and drills.

Vogelsang straddles a slope overlooking a spectacular vista of lakes and wooded hills in the Eifel region of western Germany. It was off-limits for 60 years because it was used as a military base and training camp for NATO troops.

This Teutonic knight can be seen at an entrance tower to Vogelsang College. Formed at the end of the 12th century, the Teutonic knights were an order formed to protect Christian pilgrims en route to the Holy Land. Many of the Nazi symbols draw on medieval imagery.

Pictured from the new exhibition is a photo of the "cult chamber" which featured a statue of the "new German man" flanked on the walls by the names of "martyrs" killed in the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923. The exhibition also contains striking photographs of ordinary-looking men smiling in their uniforms, as well as interactive displays with testimony by Holocaust victims.

Stefan Wunsch is the scientific director of the exhibition. He is pictured with an exhibit containing an interview with Lithuanian Holocaust survivor Mascha Rolnikaite, talking about the so-called "Butcher of Vilnius" Franz Murer, a former college student at a different Nazi college in Krössinsee who was responsible for killing thousands of Jews in Lithuania.

"Visitors are confronted with the question, 'What has this got to do with me?' If you look at political developments today, it's very relevant," says Gabriele Harzheim, a researcher at Vogelsang. Here, she is pictured standing in the former cult chamber inside the main tower of Vogelsang with photos of it in its original state.

Vogelsang was opened to the public in 2006 after the Belgian army vacated it, confronting authorities with a dilemma because the place is festooned with Nazi symbols and statues. Researcher Gabriele Harzheim is pictured holding a historic photo of the site.

The communal halls at Vogelsang were feudal and elaborately decorated, while the squat, barrack-like dormitories were spartan to emphasize the community over the individual.

Organizers expect the new exhibition and surrounding facility to draw 300,000 visitors per year. However, neo-Nazis also continue to visit the place. This five-meter (16.4-foot) torch bearer at Vogelsang College is a popular location for them to unfurl propaganda banners and have photos taken of themselves.

Museum directors and tourism officials are well aware of the risk of pandering to "dark tourism" - neo-Nazis fascinated with the macabre grandeur of the Nazi regime. Curators have tried to break the spell with sober exhibitions and architectural changes that counter the soaring bombasticism of Hitler's architects.