In order to realize the hall the upper half of the tower was dismantled in winter 1941/42. Blasting operation When the "final victory" failed to materialize, the castle commander (or Burghauptmann), SS General Siegfried Taubert, fled on 30 March 1945 as the U.S. 3rd Armored Division closed in on the Paderborn area in the final phases of the war. Meanwhile, at his headquarters in Brenzlau, Himmler ordered adjutant SS Major Heinz Macher, with 15 of his men, to destroy the Wewelsburg. This took place on Saturday 31 March only three days before the 83rd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Armored Division seized the grounds after reports from a nearby Bürgermeister that "SS men had set fire to their barracks in the castle, changed into civilian clothes and fled." Because Macher's company ran out of explosives, they placed tank mines only in the unimportant southeast tower, the guard-building and the SS-cadre-building which was completely destroyed. The castle was set on fire and – according to information of the village citizens – the castle was open to looting. Members Heinrich Himmler: Aegis Erich Schupping: Commandant Siegfried Taubert: Commandant Karl Elstermann von Elster Stabsführer: replaced by Paul Hübner Walter Muller: Hauptsturmführer Josef Schneid: Hauptsturmführer also known as Pepi Walter Franzius: architect brought on board in October 1935 Karl Lasch Dr Hans-Peter de Courdes: until May 1939 Dr Bernhard Frank: SS Commander of the Obersalzberg Dr Heinrich Hagel (physician): Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Jordan Elfriede Wippermann Legends and interpretations According to rumours the Death's Head Rings were to be buried in the vault. The vault, allegedly dubbed the "Himmler Crypt", was (allegedly) dedicated to Heinrich I, founder and first king of the medieval German state (see East Francia), of whom Himmler reportedly believed himself to be the reincarnation and where he hoped to be interred after his death. This assertion is unproven. In Himmlers's opinion Heinrich I protected Germany from invaders from the "East", as popularized in Richard Wagner's Lohengrin opera. Leading representatives of the Third Reich were fascinated by the story of the "Holy Grail". Hitler admired Richard Wagner's operas Lohengrin and Parsifal. Hitler himself never visited the castle. Himmler reportedly imagined the castle as a focus for the rebirth of the Knights of the Round Table and appointed twelve SS officers as his followers, who would gather at various rooms throughout the castle and perform unknown neo-Paganistic and possibly neo-Gnostic rites. The SS had twelve