Post-War
In 1948/49 the castle was restored. On June 29, 1950 the castle was reopened as a museum and youth hostel, while the Niederhagen kitchen had been renovated into a village fire station.
In 1973, a two-year project was begun to restore the North Tower, and by 1977 it had been decided to restore the entire site as a war monument. It opened on March 20, 1982, with several survivors of the Niederhagen camp present. Karl Hueser of the University of Paderborn was considered influential in the reopening project, and Wulff Brebeck would become the head of Kreismuseum Wewelsburg (Wewelsburg District Museum).
Due to a local government reform the Wewelsburg became property of the district of Paderborn in 1975. In 1996 the Historical Museum of the Bishopric of Paderborn (Historisches Museum des Hochstifts Paderborn) opened in the east- and south-wing. The museum documents the history of the "Hochstift Paderborn" (Bishopric of Paderborn) which was one of territories of the Holy Roman Empire. In 2010 the museum's contemporary history department was reopened as "Wewelsburg 1933–1945 Memorial Museum". The new permanent exhibition "Ideology and terror of the SS" now presents the history of the Schutzstaffel's activities in Wewelsburg within the broader context of the SS as a whole.
A memorial was built in honour of the deceased Niederhagen prisoners in 2000, four years later the Kreismuseum Wewelsburg was granted DM 29,400 for restoring and moving the remnants of the Niederhagen camp, as well as producing an educational film on the Ukrainian and Russian prisoners who were housed there. In 2006 and 2007 it hosted the annual Internacia Seminario, a meeting of Esperanto youth.
The youth hostel which is mainly placed in the east-wing of the castle is one of the largest in Germany (204 beds).
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