The Final Act of Daphne Divine by Syd Moore

The Final Act of Daphne Divine is the third instalment in my World War II series which looks at how the British Security Service exploited the Nazi’s obsession with the occult. Readers of the first two books will have a good idea of what’s coming. But I don’t think it’s a spoiler, for those who haven’t, to state a large part of the action takes place in Heinrich Himmler’s notorious occult castle. After all, it’s pictured on the cover.

Eighty years after its liberation the castle continues to exert a morbid fascination over many.

The SS Reichsführer leased Wewelsburg in 1934 as a school for the SS elite. He also wanted to create an impressive venue for SS leaders, and remodelled it in a strange, symbol-drenched style which married Arthurian legend with Germanic and Nordic rune ‘magic’. Himmler was obsessed with the occult, mysticism and esoterica. He had already commissioned Otto Rahn to search for the Holy Grail (think Indiana Jones) and a year after he leased the castle founded the Ahnenerbe, a SS division, which undertook research into folklore and prehistory. He also set up the Hexenkartothek (Witch Card Index) to compile information on the German witch hunts.

From 1935 to 1943, using the slave labour of the Wewelsburg (later Niederhagen) concentration camp inmates, the castle was remodelled extensively in a design that reflected his fixations.  When the allies closed in on 31 March 1945, Himmler ordered the SS to demolish the castle, covering evidence of the crimes committed there. The demolition squad ran out of explosives and resorted to setting the castle on fire. Most of it was gutted but the North Tower, with its crypt for rituals and the Obergruppenführersaal (Hall of the Supreme SS Leaders), survived. And so it was to there I travelled for research in 2024 and 2025.

Many aspects of the castle shocked and surprised me. For a start, I hadn’t expected there to be a ‘Family Day’ going on. But one has to remember that there’s been a building on the site for over a millennium. The Nazis’ association lasted less than eleven years and, aside from the North Tower, the rest of the castle reflects its long history as an early Medieval fort, a hunting lodge, its use during the witch trials, and its function as seat for the Prince-Bishops of Paderborn. There are displays featuring Ice Age artefacts and curious exhibits of traditional folk costumes from the region.

To visit the North Tower, however, you must pass through the Wewelsburg Memorial Museum’s permanent exhibition, Ideology and Terror of the SS. Though the material is difficult to handle, it prepares you for crossing over the moat into the monument to human suffering and totalitarian terror.

Every single person I saw walk through the arched entrance gasped and stopped. It is vast, echoing and dark, built to resemble an ancient Mycenaean tomb and is quite frankly – quite obviously – sinister. Its rounded spaces are designed to make you feel small and anxious. Your stomach plummets. The air is different, pregnant and tense, layered with so imagined horrors you can almost taste them.  I have visited many troubling sites in my life, but I have never been so affected by the atmosphere of a place.  The chamber’s architecture embraces ghastly theatre - twelve plinths are arranged around the perimeter. In the centre three steps lead to a pit, with a hole in its middle. Above it, at the apex of the ceiling, is a decorated swastika with four small square holes. Around the walls a series of paintings, Memorial Cycle by Josef Glahé, depict the human cost of war and the holocaust. The whole scene is devastating. 

On the second storey, the Obergruppenführersaal, a mosaiced runic sun wheel, in black marble, dominates the floor. The symbol was co-opted in the 1990s by extreme right wing neo-Nazi groups, who gave it the name the ‘Black Sun’. To avoid any ‘celebration’ or ‘romanticising’ of the thing, while there you are closely monitored. All visitors to the North Tower are forbidden to take photographs or wear symbols or clothing associated with far-right groups or racist slogans. Perhaps, in an effort to reclaim the space, this hall now forms part of a youth hostel that runs along the top of the castle (yes, you can stay there if you really want to). When I visited, neon orange and grey bean bags were scattered across the Nazi design.

Once I’d left, it took a while for me to ‘decompress’. The crypt’s atmosphere stays with you, as does the knowledge that you have just visited a site steeped in so much blood. Any writer or reader with a pinch of imagination cannot stop themselves from wondering - what happened within those walls?  What nasty rituals took place? Why is there a pit? What the hell is in it?

Though Himmler tried to bury his secrets in the ruins of the castle, some things have a way of coming to light. If you can bear the horror, you can find out what I made of it in my new book. 

 The Final Act of Daphne Devine by Syd Moore (One world Publications) Out Now

No mission is without its element of danger. But nothing could have prepared Daphne Devine for this... Back in enemy territory, Daphne and one-time lover Jack have been sent to deliver The Grimoire, a centuries-old book filled with mysticism and spells. Posing as a rare book dealer, she will hand the book to a prominent SS officer and send the Nazis into a spiral where their very beliefs are turned against them. But this is war. Behind every corner a betrayal is lurking and your enemies are often closer than you think. There are some things we cannot foresee, and these are the things that can kill us. Is this the mission where there can be no return?

Syd Moore can be found on  Facebook, Instagram @sydmoorewriter and X@sydmoore1