Nürnberg

As it was a Sunday, and not much was open, we decided that this would be the day to go to visit the Nazi Party Rally Grounds and the Documentation Centre within part of it. Nürnberg has struggled to shrug off the burden of it's Nazi legacy. The Nazi Party Rally Grounds have a number of buildings and venues, all with intimidating megalomanic architecture, where orchestrated propaganda campaigns were held to rally support for the party. The Documentation Centre was opened in late 2001, within part of the Kongresshalle (Congress Hall), and houses a fantastic exhibition called "Fascination and Terror" about National Socialism and the rise of Nazism before and during the war. At the time there was also an exhibition on of Leni Riefenstahl's work.

Not really knowing how far it was exactly, but believing it to be a walkable distance, I convinced Tim that there was no need to catch a tram, but walk instead. It was freezing, and in the end took over an hour to get there (it might have been closer to 2 hours). We needed to stop at a bakery to get hot drinks along the way to warm us up again. Tim repeatedly has a go at me for the fact that I made us walk all that way (Tim: and rightly so!), but in any event, had we caught the tram we would have been there way before it opened, whereas we reached it just in time for it to open on foot.

The first place we went to was the Documentation Centre. Built in part of the Congress Hall, the architects did a fantastic job of adding in thoroughly modern architectural bits that totally break up the severe Nazi geometry. We spent a long time in the "Fascination and Terror" exhibition.

We then walked around the Nazi Party Rally Grounds to all the different lcations - it covers a vast area, so this took quite some time.

The inside of the Congress Hall, which was never finished. It was supposed to outdo the Colosseum, and would have been enormous if completed.

The outside of the Congress Hall.

Looking along the Great Street which runs as the central axis for the grounds. It was to be used as a marching ground. If you were to draw a line from this avenue back to the old city of Nürnberg, it would connect the rally ground with the old Imperial Castle. The significance of this was that the Nazis were trying to connect the ideology of National Socialism with the imperial German past. Nürnberg had a special, mystical & mythical importance to the Nazis, particularly in relation to the foundation of National Socialism.

A view across Dutzendteich Lake (though currently drained) to the Congress Hall. I can't remember exactly why the lake was drained at the time, but it was something to do with the fact that there was some sort of bacteria contaminating it. Dutzendteich Lake sits between the Congress Hall and the Zeppelin Field, part of which you can see below. The Zeppelin Field was the parade ground for Nazi Party rallies. It had space for 200,000 people.

The two photos above show the Zeppelin Grandstand (the second is of the door in the centre of it). The grandstand is in front of the Zeppelin Field. There was originally a large swastika on the top of the grandstand, which was blown up by the Allies after Nürnberg was liberated.

The photos above and below show the Hall of Honour. It was constructed after WW1 to commemorate the fallen soldiers from Nürnberg. During the 1929 Party Rally, Hilter commemorated the fallen soldiers of WW1 and the martyrs of the National Socialist movement. Today the memorial commemorates the fallen soldiers of WW1, WW2 and the victims of the National Socialist rule of terror.

After our visit to the Nazi Party Rally Grounds we took a tram back to the old city, once we had worked out how to pay for the tram tickets - Tim asked an old couple for help: "Hello we are from Australia. Can you help us...", and they protested that they couldn't speak English very well until Tim demonstrated that he was able to speak German quite well, but just didn't understand how to use the ticket machine! We walked back through the main shopping area, and took some photos of the buildings, on our way back to the youth hostel.

In this photo above you can see the youth hostel - the great big castle on the hill.

Tim went for a walk later at dusk and took some more photos.

Albrecht Dürer House, where the artist Albrecht Dürer lived from 1509-1528.

Once again for dinner we decided to chance our luck with a kitchen hopefully more reputable than the youth hostel's, so we walked back into the old city, and tried to find a nice restaurant to eat at. One that we walked into appeared to be holding a private party (though there was nothing on the door to say so) and we got some rather hostile looks from the patrons. We worked out we weren't wanted! We finally found a nice italian restaurant, and sat next to a large extended family, a number of whom seemed to be of the gothic persuasion, plus a young couple who appeared to be on a rather awkward first date.

Another night of giggling girls next door.