main departments (SS-Hauptämter) with twelve leaders. The number twelve plays a major role in the design of the North Tower: twelve pedestals in the vault, twelve pillars and niches in the "Obergruppenführersaal", and twelve spokes of the sun wheel. In the study on ancient sense characters during the Third Reich, the sun in general was interpreted as "the strongest and most visible expression of God", the number twelve as documented for "the things of the target and the completion". With reference to the number 12 in their studies on Germanic mythology a relation was drawn to "the twelve Æsir of divine kind who have (according to the Edda) twelve domiciles and twelve stallions" and to the "twelve rivers which flow from the fountain Hwergelmir in Niflheim". Quote of former SS-General Karl Wolff referring to the Obergruppenführersaal: "This was a part of the myth which was to be introduced here. These are the twelve compartments(*), they were created according to mystic-confused things with which Himmler liked to play, of the Round Table of King Arthur. In fact we were twelve main department leaders (Hauptamtchefs) who represented equally next to each other their service areas because Himmler didn't have the courage to appoint a Deputy-Reichsführer-SS or a Deputy Chief of the German police." (* German original sound record: "Postamente": this could refer to the twelve columns; there is also speculation about twelve heraldic emblems for the twelve leading SS Generals which were to be placed inside the hall.) Allegedly the "Obergruppenführersaal" has similarities with the Mausoleum of Theodoric in Ravenna When one of the officers died, his ashes would be interred in the castle. There is speculation that the urns of dead SS leaders would have been placed on the pedestals in the vault. The vault is also named "consecration-hall" (Weihehalle). The exact meaning of the vault is unknown. Nevertheless, the room is significant for the quasi-religious aspects of National Socialism – especially the ancestral cult. A possible interpretation of the symbolic character of the eternal flame in general according to solemn beliefs which had established during the NS-era especially in SS circles: in the fire they wanted to feel the soul of ancestors. The symbol of the eternal flame stood for the aspiration of the ancestral soul from which man arises at his birth and which he reenters at his death. Consecration-sites and -events suggested the immortality of the people's soul.