The Knight´s Legacy

Wewelsburg Castle -1938

WEWELSBURG CASTLE

GERMANY

AUTUMN OF 1938

Despite the heavy rain and the shadows falling over the countryside, he could already see the long shadow of the Castle erected on top of the mountain. The motorcycle engine changed its sound as it began climbing the hill. Passing through a checkpoint control Colonel Heinz Horstmann made the typical Nazi salute with the arm extended to the guard dressed in the black uniform of the SS, gesture made mechanically with a feeling not free of displeasure, although he took care of not showing it. It drew his attention that the sentry did not stop them to examine their papers, so he deduced that they were expected. Hortsmann stirred uncomfortable on the motorcycle side-car, too narrow and too short for his one meter ninety height and its ninety kilos weight.

The road became steeper and the vehicle trembled and neighed as it advanced with an obviously excessive load for the climb. The driver, a Corporal was  sweating despite the cold by the effort to govern the gas and steering in the curves of the rise.

The road finally led them to the gate of the Castle, situated in the middle of the thick walls of local stone and dotted with rectangular windows with distributed glass panels.

At that check post the review of papers was made according to the protocols and the sentinel communicated by means of an old phone located in the stone gate, after which he let them enter.

Entering the spacious courtyard Horstmann could admire the proportions of the Castle, and see in the background the famous North Tower. The whole castle inspired him a sense of strength and eternity but at the same time gloomy feelings. He thought about the myths connecting it with medieval battles and later with the Teutonic Knights, model on which the Marshal Himmler was forming his SS corps. Horstmann did not belong to the SS but to the regular German Army and his feelings about the former was a mixture of mistrust and fear. While on the one hand, the propaganda of the Nazi regime showed that SS prefigure the future of the thousand years Reich, on the other hand among the members of the Wehrmacht ran rumors about strange and even frightening experiments carried out by the aforementioned unit of elite in faraway places. Horstmann, educated in the strict rules of the traditional army suspected of a militarized unit driven by unknown rules, just as he had suspected the mobs of thugs gathered earlier together by the Nazis in the SA then bloodily scattered by Hitler´s order.

Horstmann was received by a completely decorated SS officer who was lacking a hand replaced by a gloved prosthesis. The man treated him with remarkable coolness and led him to the entrance of one of the buildings, equipped with a heavy wooden door behind which opened a spacious lobby and a marble staircase. On the first floor they entered an office in which a Non-Commissioned Officer awaited them. After announcing them by telephone, he led them to a very large office, empty at that moment. There the one-armed SS went away and Horstmann was left alone looking at the decor of the place, sober and a little scary. Scarce, large and heavy furniture, and an immense desk at a  high level above the floor surely designed to submit the spirit of those who were invited to that room and place them under the spatial supremacy of whoever occupied the desk, typical architectural and furniture arrangement at the time. All this, however, did not dent in Horstmann who knew these codes and stratagems.

After a few minutes, a SS General entered the office, exhibiting numerous medals and the classical dagger with a skull that distinguished this unit. Horstmann judged that his martial and slightly sinister aspect was consistent with the site.

“Herr Oberst.”He said. “I am the Kommandant Manfred von Knobelsdorff.”

Horstmann was now really impressed, his host was none other than the second of Heinrich Himmler, who was in charge of the castle of Wewelsburg. He wasn't expecting a reception by someone of such high rank.

von Knobelsdorff extracted a dossier of one of the drawers of his desk, on whose top Horstmann could see his name; placed it on the desk and after studying it carefully and apparently satisfied addressed him.

“I'm going to ask you to remove the jacket and shirt.” Said bluntly and unexpectedly the Commander. Horstmann agreed surprised after which he was subjected to a visual inspection by Knobelsdorff.

“Do you have this spot in a diamond shape on the back of the base of the neck since your birth?” Asked rather unnecessarily. Horstmann had the strange certainty that the dossier had some reference to the spot, and that it somehow was a relevant fact for von Knobelsdorff. It meant that the information would be of a racial nature.

“Yes.”

“Who are or were your parents?”

“Farmers in Brandenburg.” Horstmann responded promptly and proudly, firstly by the high esteem in which he had his parents and then because it was not usual that in a closed caste system that the German army still was a son of farmers reached at his rank, particularly while he was still young.

“Don´t you have an idea of your most remote origins?”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“To the Middle Ages.”

“No, absolutely no idea.”  Replied somewhat surprised Horstmann.

Apparently satisfied with the exam, von Knobelsdorff asked him to get dressed while he kept the dossier in a drawer and sat in his high placed chair.

Horstmann although intrigued by this strange interrogation, did not make questions or comments.

“In 1936 someone offered you to be a part of our organization and finally you decided not to accept. May I ask why?”

Horstmann became distraught and was placed on the defensive. Being a member of the SS was at that time a sort of honor that hardly rejected without becoming suspect.

“I am at ease in the Wehrmacht, and think I have a role in it.” He said.

“However you have volunteered to participate in expeditions related to anthropological research organized by the Reich. Do you confirm this offer, albeit in very far away from our homeland destinations?”

“Of course.”

“In civilian life you was speleologist, right?” Knobelsdorff asked casually.

“An amateur one.” Answered Horstmann surprised, wondering how much information about him the SS officer had. “But I have had opportunities to visit a large number of caves in Germany, Austria and France.”

“Well, what I will now say is highly confidential.”

From that moment on von Knobelsdorff began to provide an explanation concerning a secret expedition that Himmler was preparing to go to Antarctica. The exact destination and its purpose would not be revealed to Horstmann until he had accepted to be a member of the expedition and was aboard the ship that would take him to the chosen site. The only thing  von Knobelsdorff could anticipate him was the final goal was carrying on scientific research related to the origins of the Aryan race, high priority for the SS and the Third Reich.

Horstmann could hardly believe what he was hearing. He had heard rumors of expeditions to Tibet with the mentioned purpose, but never anything relating to Antarctica. Actually, he reasoned with his agile mind, they were not really asking if he volunteered to participate, they were only communicating his designation. The SS would not accept a second snub from him.

“Of course I accept the honor that is given to me.” He said, overcoming his reservations and trying to appear convincing.

“Please accompany me.” Said finally von Knobelsdorff as he suddenly stood up. Followed by Horstmann he walked downstairs and left the building in which they were going to the North Tower. Upon entering it Horstmann became seized by a growing excitement since he felt that the center of the whole castle, everything that  provided it a meaning was in that tower.

Passing through several corridors, all strictly controlled by rigid and armed SS guards and always on the ground floor they finally came to a vast circular room, outlined by twelve high gates through which the dim light of that cold autumn day entered. The grayish marble floor had in its center the design of a sort of wheel with a large diameter  made of colored stones. The wheel represented a figure with some kind of solar rays splitting from a smaller circle in the center vaguely resembling a swastika.

“We are in the Obergruppenfuhrersaal, the room of the twelve generals of highest degree of SS.” Said von Knobelsdorff  with bright eyes and slightly raising his voice. It was clear that being in that site produced him a vivid emotion.

“ This room is not only  the Center  of the Castle, but the center of powers , a true navel of the Earth. The Black Sun which you see in the Center is the true symbol of the Aryan race. From this geographical point has risen an unstoppable tide that will expand the German nation to the East subduing the  Slavs and Asians for the next thousand years.” His true fervor shook the voice of the General and Horstmann could not help but feel enervated by it, although later his judgment revealed the dose of fanaticism that fed that fervor.

“Very few men have been able to enter into this enclosure.” Went on the SS high officer. “ Now I request you take an oath that you will honor with your life.” Confused Horstmann agreed.

“Swear by your honor of German Officer to devote all your energies to the task that you about to start and keep absolutely secret all that you have already seen and heard and those that you will witness from now on.” Saying this von Knobelsdorff  handed him over you the SS dagger grasping it by the blade. Horstmann placed his right hand on the cross of the knife, where a skull and a few SS runes were and issued his oath.

“If you ever want to review your decision not to enter into the SS, talk to me. We need men with your lineage and experience.”Added  mysteriously the Kommandant.

The two men then returned to von Knobelsdorff´s office that provided him with some ancillary explanations, and made him sign an agreement of confidentiality which endorsed the sworn made moments earlier in the Black Sun room after what the SS left suddenly the office leaving Horstmann alone.