The National Socialist Party and Nuremberg

Most of us know about Nuremberg and the Nazi's because the War Crimes Trials were held here, but I didn't know (and maybe you didn't either) that the Nazi Party held its yearly rally here at grounds designed and built specifically for the Nazi Party Rallies of the Third Reich held every year starting 1933 up to 1938. The 1939 rally, scheduled to start on September 2nd, was called off due to the invasion of Poland.

The reasons for the rise of the Nazi Party its place in German political and social history have a great display and the Documentation Center. The center is located in one part of a Nazi era building, but notice how there is a line going through the museum. It symbolically slices and "crosses out" the ideals of the Nazi era.

Here's the entrance to the Documentation Center and how the "arrow" cuts through it.

The most interesting part of the visit is a walk around the Nazi Party Rally Grounds. This was the plan, but only certain parts of the grounds were actually completed before funds were diverted towards WWII. Notice stadiums and in the distance the tent city for housing the participants.

This building is the "inside" of the unfinished congress center, which was to be a covered arena.

This is what the finished product would have looked like.

Here's the congress center from the outside.

The German Stadium model. It was designed to hold 400,000 (yeah that's 5 zero's) spectators.

Here's the German Stadium model from the back. From here you can see Hitler's love of classical/neoclassical architecture.

The party built partial models in locations away from the grounds, but this is as far as they got here at the grounds. Their hole is now a lake.

Walking around the grounds, you come up to a bunch of sets of stairs.

Climbing up, here's what I saw. It's a mess because it turns out a huge concert was held on the Rally Grounds the weekend before I got there. I guess it's logical reuse.

What I stumbled onto was the Zeppelin Field. The field could hold 100,000 standing soldiers and 60,000 spectators. The Zeppelin Field was used for parades and roll call for Hitler Youth.






Here's a photo from the Documentation Center taken from a Zeppelin Field rally.

This is the tribune which the spectators faced. It's based on the Altar from Pergamon (wait for further pictures in a later post). Parts of the tribune were destroyed before historians stopped it declaring the tribune and the entire grounds a historically significant place.

Here's what the tribune looks like today.

AMAZINGLY, it's open to the public and you can climb right up the stairs and stand right there at the podium.

Over on the other side of town is the Nurnberg Court of Justice

It was here, in the year after the end of WWII, that an International Court of Justice held a trial for the leaders of the Nazi Party.

The proceedings were held right here in this room, Room 600.

In this picture are some of the 20 defendants, the leaders of the Nazi Party/Government. That's Gorring on the left in the glasses and Hess right next to him.

The process at Nurnberg led to the creation of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Here I am Courtroom 600. This is the BEST of the set of pictures the docent took of me. This is why I don't have other people take my picture.

Over there on the left is where the defendants sat.

One last thing that gives me a connection to this Nurnberg process. It turns out that Uli's Dad, when he was 21 years old, was forced to join the party and was assigned guard duty at the famous Dachau concentration camp. After the war, he sat trial here in Nurnberg (maybe not this room) and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. It was in 1953, after he served his 8 years, he moved back to Spiegelau, met Uli's mom and started a family. You can do a google search and find the trial proceedings and the verdict.