Don’t Mention The War

Nuremberg has a very strong association with World War 2. Before the war, Nuremberg was one of the strongholds of nazi power, and it was where Hitler held nazi party rallies. After the war, it was the chosen location for the trials of senior nazi officials – the Nuremberg Trials.

Hitler planned to make Nuremberg the centre as it had previously been where the Holy Roman Empire had crowned its emperors, and he was trying to buy in to the whole history and destiny thing. It’s also conveniently located near the centre of Germany, especially once Austria had been annexed. To that end, he started building a number of structures there, and we toured what remains of the rally grounds: Zeppelin field, Luitpoldarena, Grosse Strasse, and Kongresshalle. The latter, and a number of other buildings and projects, were started but never finished. And the Luitpoldarena, scene of the famous speeches filmed and photographed by Leni Reifenstahl, is now falling apart, as it was built from cheap limestone. Some of it, especially the collonades, was demolished as it was becoming unsafe, but the city council has now decided to maintain what’s left, at significant cost, to preserve it for history.   

How it looks now

View from the speaker's platform

The Kongresshalle is an empty shell, started but, like everything else, abandoned in 1941 when the cost was no longer compatible with the cost of fighting the war. It’s estimated that around €80bn was poured into the building, mostly as concrete for the foundations, which were on marshy ground. It’s currently not used for anything much, although part of it has been converted to a museum called the Documentzentrum, and some of it is used as storage by the Nuremberg Philharmonic Orchestra. There are plans to build a temporary opera house inside the horseshoe, for use while the current opera house is refurbished and modernised. Not everyone is happy about this use, including our guide Ziggy, as the citizenry weren’t asked about it first. 

For many years after the end of the war the attitude of the local population was to pretend that all this stuff didn’t exist. However, as they began to reconcile and open up about what had happened during the war, some parts are now used for deliberately un-warlike purposes today – rock concerts, cycle and car races etc. It’s all a bit “Fuck off, Hitler!” in its attitude.

The final leg of our tour took us to the courts, where there is an exhibition about the Nuremberg Trials. Ziggy explained about the process, and why it took place in Nuremberg (the Russians wanted Berlin, but France, Britain and the USA weren’t having that). We finished up with a visit to courtroom 600, where it all took place. Until recently this remained a working courtroom, but it’s now in the process of being turned into part of the exhibition.

We finished at a more civilised lunch hour than yesterday, so took ourselves off to the Old Town again in search of eat. We’d passed a place last night which looked good, but was closed for a private function, so looked again, and it was open (many cafés and restaurants, as well as nearly all the shops, shut on Sunday). There were fewer people walking around the street than yesterday, mostly tourists I guess, as all sensible locals would be at home having Sunday lunch.

After lunch, we went to visit the Bible Museum. This does exactly what it says on the tin. We set the audio guides to English, and listened to the history of the bible – German edition – which involved Gutenberg, Martin Luther, and other such people. After a bit more meandering the streets, including a visit to the marriage merry-go-round fountain, we headed back to the hotel for a rest. 

An old bible, with annotations