Hardehausen Abbey (''Kloster Hardehausen'') is a former
Cistercian
The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...
monastery located near
Warburg
Warburg (; Westphalian language, Westphalian: ''Warberich'' or ''Warborg'') is a town in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, central Germany on the river Diemel near the three-state point shared by Hessen, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. It ...
Kamp Abbey
Kamp Abbey (Kloster Kamp), also known as Altenkamp Abbey or Alt(en)feld Abbey (and in English formerly Camp Abbey) was the first Cistercian monastery founded in German territory, in the present town of Kamp-Lintfort in North Rhine-Westphalia.
H ...
on the Lower Rhine. Construction was completed with the dedication of the church in 1165.
Between 1185 and 1243 three daughter houses were founded from Hardehausen: in 1185, Marienfeld Abbey in Münsterland; in 1196, Bredelar Abbey near
Marsberg
Marsberg () is a town in the Hochsauerland district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
History
Although its origins are obscure, Marsberg was a prospering town by the 13th century (it was even minting coins). It was a free city until 1807, when ...
; and in 1243, Scharnebeck Abbey in Marienfliess near Lüneburg. Also, the nunnery at Wilhelmshausen (Walshausen) which Hardehausen had acquired in 1293 and subsequently emptied, was re-established in 1320 with a new community of monks.
During the Thirty Years' War the abbey was looted and destroyed. During its reconstruction in the years 1680 to 1750 it received its present form.
In 1803 the abbey was
secularised
In sociology, secularization (or secularisation) is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions. The ''secularization thesis'' expresses the ...
, and the monks expelled. The contents were sold or auctioned, and the church was demolished in 1812. The estates were rented out as state property.
Hardehausen was briefly re-founded as a Cistercian monastery in 1927, but the new community was brought to an end by an order of dissolution issued by the National Socialist government in 1938, when the buildings and grounds were sold to the
Henschel
Henschel & Son (german: Henschel und Sohn) was a German company, located in Kassel, best known during the 20th century as a maker of transportation equipment, including locomotives, trucks, buses and trolleybuses, and armoured fighting vehicle ...
company from
Kassel
Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...
, from whom they were acquired by the ''Verein für katholische Arbeiterkolonien'' ("Union for Catholic Workers' Colonies"). In 1944 the ''
Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt
National Political Institutes of Education (german: Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten; officially abbreviated NPEA, commonly abbreviated Napola for ''Nationalpolitische Lehranstalt'' meaning National Political Teaching Institute) were ...
'' (Napola)
Bensberg
Bergisch Gladbach () is a city in the Cologne/Bonn Region of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and capital of the Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis (district).
Geography
Bergisch Gladbach is located east of the river Rhine, approx. 10 kilometers east of ...
transferred to Hardehausen. At this period an external work party from
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...
, consisting of 30 prisoners, were deployed for forced labour in Hardehausen.on the external camp at the Napola in Bensberg und Hardehausen see Dieter Zühlke, Jan Erik Schulte, ''Vom Rheinland nach Westfalen: KZ-Außenlager bei der „Nationalpolitischen Erziehungsanstalt“ in Bensberg und Hardehausen'', in: Jan Erik Schulte (ed.), ''Konzentrationslager im Rheinland und in Westfalen 1933–1945. Zentrale Steuerung und regionale Initiative'', Schöningh, Paderborn 2005, , pp. 113–130, and on Hardehausen especially pp. 122–128.
Since 1945 the former monastery has been used for the educational activities of the present