NS-Documentation Center of the City of Cologne

The NS-Documentation Center of the City of Cologne is probably the first institution worldwide to offer a 360-degree tour of the Memorial and permanent exhibition, both supported by an audio guide in eight languages. In addition, this ambitious tour offers far more than a simple view into the rooms. Every media station of the exhibition offers a wide range of content through film and audio which is also available online for individuals who cannot visit the exhibition in person.

Cologne’s National Socialism Documentation Center is the largest regional memorial site in all of Germany for the victims of the Nazis. It was founded by a resolution passed by the Cologne city council on December 13, 1979. For many years, the center’s activities were restricted to research and academics. So on June 11, 1987, the council once again passed a resolution calling for “the foundation of the NS Documentation Center of the city of Cologne,” and the center gradually developed into the comprehensive institution it is today. The NS documentation center today serves in equal part as a memorial and a research center, linking the commemoration of the victims of the Nazi regime to the exploration and portrayal of Cologne under Nazi rule. The center considers itself a combination memorial site, learning center and research locus.

Since 1988, the NS Documentation Center (NS Doc) has been housed in “EL-DE Haus”, the EL-DE building. Significantly, this building was the headquarters of the Cologne Gestapo (secret police) between December 1935 and March 1945. The name EL-DE is based on the phonetic pronunciation of the letters L and D and comes from the building’s developer, Leopold Dahmen, a Catholic businessman who rented the building to the Gestapo even while it was still under construction. The Gestapo had the building reconfigured for its own purposes, which included building ten prison cells in the basement. In a bit of historical irony, the EL-DE building remained largely untouched by the ravages of the war. Between 1947 and 1949, it was refurbished and enlarged, in keeping with in its original style. Since an expansion in 2012, the NS DOC uses about 2,800 square meters of space in the EL-DE building.

The former Gestapo prison was inaugurated as a memorial site on December 4, 1981. The exhibition was updated in 2009. In addition, the Gestapo rooms at the back of the prison, as well as their bunker in the sub-basement were opened to the public. Beginning in 2012, the former place of execution in the courtyard will also be a part of the memorial. Some 1,800 inscriptions and drawings done by prisoners have survived on the cell walls.

Since June, 1997, the permanent exhibition in the EL-DE building has depicted political, social and community life in “Cologne During the Nazi Era." That includes the seizure of power and the power apparatus, propaganda and the “national community,” everyday life, youth culture, religion, racism, the genocide of Cologne’s Jews and its Sinti and Roma, and opposition, resistance, war and society during war.

The memorial site and the permanent exhibition are an essential part of the learning center and the educational program. In addition, temporary exhibitions on a broad range of subjects explore local and national aspects of the Nazi era. Between the beginning of 1998 and the beginning of 2012, the center mounted 53 temporary exhibitions. A comprehensive supplementary program was developed for each exhibition.The NS Documentation Center organizes more than 130 events per year, in a variety of different formats. Events range from small lectures, readings and panel discussions to workshops, large conferences and cultural events with theater and music.

Since the beginning of 2008, the Information and Education Association against Right-wing Extremism (ibs) has complemented and broadened the work of the NS Documentation Center. The ibs addresses the issue of extreme right-wing ideology in the world today. Its goal is to foster a consciousness of human rights, democracy, cultural diversity and non-violence, as well as to confront and prevent extreme-right patterns of thought and action. The In-formation and Education Association fund a mobile counseling project against right-wing extremism in Cologne county.