EL-DE Haus
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EL-DE Haus, officially the National Socialist Documentation Center, located in Cologne, is the former headquarters of the Gestapo and now a museum documenting the Third Reich .
The building was at first the business premises of the jeweler Leonard Dahmen - hence the name. In 1934, the Nazis seized the building from him and turned it into the headquarters of the secret police, Gestapo. Surprisingly, the building survived the Allied bombing of Cologne during World War II, while 90% of the city was destroyed. After the bombings, the basements of the building, which had been used as torture rooms, were used to store wartime files and paperwork.
In 2006, the National Socialist Documentation Center was awarded the Best in Heritage award, which is given to select museums. The only other German museum to have won the prize is the Buddenbrook Museum in Lübeck.
[edit] External links
- (German)Official website
- Martens, Josefa: Cologne Museum Sheds Light on Nazi Era from Deutsche Welle. Retrieved March 12, 2006.
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