10 Memorials to Explore in Germany

Aegidienkirche was one of the three churches in the Old Town Hannover, built in the Gothic style in 1347. The church was destroyed in World War II and was left in ruins as a war memorial.

Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp that had around 120,000 prisoners out of which more than 50,000 dead. It is located in Lower Saxony, between the village of Pilsen and the town of Bergen. The place hosts a museum that explains more about the World War and how the inmates were treated.

The Buddenbrookhaus in Lübeck has been a memorial since 1993 sponsored by the Kulturstiftung Hansestadt Lübeck . It houses the Friends of Buddenbrookhaus , the German Thomas Mann Society , the Heinrich Mann Society , the Golo Mann Society and the Erich Mühsam Society . Birte Lipinski has been the manager of the Buddenbrookhaus since April 2014. In the house there is a museum with two permanent exhibitions: "The Buddenbrooks - A novel of the century" and "The Manns - a family of writers". There i

Nazi concentration camp used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May 1945. The walled compound of the camp consists of prisoner barracks, morgue, gas chambers, execution trenches, crematory ovens, guardhouses, etc.. that were fully operational. A very informative memorial showing the dark side of the humans.

Also known as the Holocaust Memorial, it is a memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Consists of a 19,000-square-metre site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. The slabs are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason.

Six Nazi party rallies were held there between 1933 and 1938 with up to 150,000 people attending the ralies. After 1945 the city of Nuremberg redesigned the area into a park. All buildings from the NS era were demolished. Only the half-round of the terraces of the main grandstand is recognizable.

Ohlsdorf Cemetery was established in 1877. It is the largest rural cemetery in the world and one of the largest cemeteries in the world. Most of those buried are civilian citizens, others are war victims, all are from different religions and ethnicities. The cemetery notably includes the Old Hamburg Memorial Cemetery that has the graves of many notable Hamburg citizens.

Research and memorial centre showcasing the political system of the former East Germany. It is located in the former headquarters of the Stasi(Ministry for State Security), the official state security service of the East Germany. The centrepiece of the exhibition is the office and working quarters of the former head of the Stasi – Erich Mielke.

Located on the site where the principal instruments of Nazi persecution and terror were occured between 1933 and 1945: the headquarters of the Gestapo, the high command and security service of the SS, and from 1939 the Reich Security Main Office. The museum shed lights about these institutions and the crimes that were organised there. Photographs and documents illustrate the history from the time the Nazis took power until the end of the war.

The Weißensee Cemetery is the second largest Jewish cemetery in Europe, containing 115,000 graves covering an area of 100 acres. The cemetery was dedicated in 1880 and at present it contains a Holocaust memorial and memorial to Jews who lost their lives during World War I.