(Sources of information: Wikipedia, website Villa ten Hompel [house history, permanent exhibition "History - Violence - Conscience" , exhibitions that can be borrowed, offers (incl. subpages)]) (Sources in German)

The Villa ten Hompel is a memorial to crimes committed by the police and administration in Münster during the National Socialism. It wants to remind of the necessary compensation of Nazi persecutees and works preventively against right-wing extremism.

The team of the villa offers you several exhibitions, on the one hand the permanent exhibition "Geschichte - Gewalt - Gewissen" ("History - Violence - Conscience"). Based on the history of the villa, this exhibition deals with the crimes of the Ordnungspolizei (Order Police) during the Second World War and attempts to come to terms with them in the post-war period. In addition, there are exhibitions that can be lent out. One exhibition focuses on resistance to National Socialism in the Münsterland region. Another revolves around the old Lengerich railroad tunnel in the north of the Münsterland region, which was used for a time as an SS concentration camp for forced laborers during the war.

In addition to the exhibitions, there are other offers for you, such as guided tours on the history of the Villa ten Hompel, places with a Nazi past in the surrounding area or on the permanent exhibition mentioned above. For school classes there are memorial trips with in-depth examination and discussion possibilities. Theme days are offered for various professional groups such as police officers and youth workers. There are also regular public lectures and panel discussions, cultural events, conferences, seminars, eyewitness talks and much more in which you can participate. Depending on the offer, you must register in advance, admission and guide prices vary.

Apart from these offers, the Villa works closely with the University of Münster, schools and the police in its educational work and provides historical and scientific literature. It also includes one of five mobile counseling teams against right-wing extremism in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The villa was built in the 1920s by Münster industrialist Rudolf ten Hompel. At the time, he was one of the city's richest citizens, co-owner of a corporation of cement works, and a member of the Reichstag. He lived in the house with his family and regularly received guests there. Due to the world economic crisis and the following difficult times in the early 1930s, his cement business collapsed, and the building later became the property of the National Socialists.

From 1940 to 1944, the Ordnungspolizei used the villa as a regional headquarters. From here, numerous police troops, guards for deportation trains and transport escorts, and supervisory personnel for concentration and extermination camps were sent out into the occupied Europe. After the Second World War, the building was the headquarters of the state police, which screened every single police officer in the Münster urban district for individual political liability and decided on their continued employment.

From the mid-1950s, the Department for Reparations of the district government of Münster sat in the villa. It was tasked with examining and making compensation payments to victims of the Nazi dictatorship and their surviving dependents (picture below: example of an office). In the late 1990s, the city bought the villa to establish the present memorial dedicated to police and administrative actions during the Nazi era.

Information about the Villa ten Hompel and its various offerings can be found on the Villa's website (website content only available in German).

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​ Further information:

• Wikipedia article Rudolf ten Hompel (article only available in German)

• Wikipedia article Ordnungspolizei (English article)