Steinwache, Memorial museum near Dortmund Central Station, Germany.
Steinwache is a former police headquarters near the central station that now functions as a memorial. The building displays original cells, interrogation rooms, and exhibition spaces documenting the repression of that era.
When the regime came to power in 1933, the police headquarters was converted into a detention and interrogation center. Over the following years, enormous numbers passed through before the site was liberated in 1945.
Inside, visitors encounter personal accounts written by those who were imprisoned, sharing their experiences in vivid detail. These testimonies reveal how people maintained their dignity under extreme suffering.
The site is open on most days of the week and can be visited individually or with organized groups. It helps to allow enough time to explore the rooms thoroughly and read through the exhibition materials.
After the war, the building was first used as residential space before later becoming a museum. This reuse reveals how the site transformed in the years following liberation.
Location: Dortmund
Address: Steinstraße 50, 44147 Dortmund, Germany
Opening Hours: Tuesday-Sunday 10:00-17:00
Phone: +492315025002
Website: http://ns-gedenkstaetten.de/nrw/dortmund
GPS coordinates: 51.51962,7.46074
Latest update: December 6, 2025 17:40
Dortmund combines industrial heritage with contemporary cultural offerings across its different districts. The city features a variety of sites, from Signal Iduna Park, Germany's largest football stadium with 81,365 seats where Borussia Dortmund has played since 1974, to the German Football Museum, which traces the history of the sport on 7,000 square meters of interactive exhibits. Green spaces are significant, including Westfalenpark, a 70-hectare park home to the 209-meter-high Florianturm and extensive rose gardens, and Dortmund Zoo, where 1,500 animals from 230 species, mainly from South America, reside across 28 hectares. Cultural institutions reflect Dortmund's mining past and its artistic scene. Zeche Zollern, a former coal mine from 1898, displays its original machinery hall and documents the industrial era of the Ruhr. The Museum of Art and Cultural History hosts collections from the Middle Ages to today within its 1924 Art Deco building. The Dortmund Concert Hall hosts classical and jazz concerts in its 1,550-seat auditorium. Lake Phoenix exemplifies urban redevelopment: this former steelworks site transformed in 2010 offers 3.2 kilometers of pathways along the water. Mengede Castle, a 13th-century fortress surrounded by moats, illustrates medieval architecture in Westphalia.
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