Villa Ten Hompel

The Villa ten Hompel stands in Münster as a memorial to crimes committed by police and government officials during the National Socialist era. Built in 1924 for industrialist Rudolf ten Hompel, the villa once hosted lavish parties in its spacious gardens. After financial collapse in the 1930s, Rudolf ten Hompel was convicted of embezzlement and lost the property in 1939. From 1940 the Ordnungspolizei used the villa as headquarters for a vast military district covering North Rhine-Westphalia and parts of Belgium. Senior police commanders such as Heinrich Lankenau, Kurt Göhrum and Reiner Liessem oversaw nearly 200,000 officers. The villa coordinated deportation trains and supervised forced labour camps during the war. Today the villa houses a permanent exhibition called Im Auftrag that examines police and administrative roles under National Socialism. Changing exhibitions explore war crimes and policing history, supported by a specialist library and archive. The memorial collaborates with local universities, schools and police forces to deepen understanding of this difficult past.