The postcard on the right designed by Gustav Goetschel shows the skyline of mediaeval Nuremberg. In the background above Nürnberg castle Hitler is shown in front of a swastika flanked by Julius Streicher and Gauleiter Wagner.
Hitler's D-2600 above Nuremberg, from page 17 of Bilder aus dem Leben des Führers
More screen shots of the town from the start of Triumph of the Will
More screen shots of the town from the start of Triumph of the Will
Nuremberg old town as seen in Triumph of the Will during the 1934 Party Rally, left, and amateur colour footage filmed at the 1938 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg.
Although the city had been practically obliterated during the war, many of the landmarks scene in this clip can still be identified as shown below. Colour footage of the rally in 1937; the video on the right is of the same rally, attended by Japanese Prince Chichibu, whose European tour began shortly after a coup attempt. (秩父宮親王の訪独) They represented Japan at the May 1937 coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in Westminster Abbey and subsequently visited Sweden and the Netherlands as the guests of King Gustav V and Queen Wilhelmina, respectively. It ended with the visit to Nuremberg where he attended the rally and met Adolf Hitler, with whom he tried to boost relations. At Nuremberg castle, Hitler launched a scathing attack against Stalin, after which the prince privately said to his aide-de-camp Masaharu Homma: "Hitler is an actor, it will be difficult to trust him." Nevertheless he remained convinced that the future of Japan was linked to Nazi Germany; and in 1938 and 1939, he had many quarrels with the Emperor about the opportunity to join a military alliance with Germany against Great Britain and the United States.
The photo on the right appears to show an Italian delegation.
The photo on the right appears to show an Italian delegation.
90% of the city had been bombed to nothing after the war, as this photo from June 1945 shows. What is seen now by the visitor is a marvel of reconstruction.
Bergstraße then and now
Nürnberg Hauptbahnhof
The left shows Horst Wessel leading SA troops in front of the main train station.
Adolf Hitler Youth Hostel
The tower behind me, built in 1377, is said to have been the gaol for Kaspar Hauser. During the the 1930s Hitler requested the site be used for accommodation for as many as 450 'young hikers.'
Reichsparteitag of 1937 and looking down the same street form the castle
Gästehaus der NSDAP
Another Nazi-era building on the Bahnhofplatz- the post office.
Rathaus
Adolf-
The Frauenkirche is one of the few buildings still intact after World War II. The church was spared from being bombed by the allies not because of religious reasons but because the twin towers served as a landmark and reference point for the allies to target their bombing missions and thus, the pilots were ordered not to destroy it. Most of Munich’s other sights are recreations after the war but perhaps the most accurate ones in Germany as Hitler had a soft spot for Munich and ordered photos of Munich’s buildings taken before the war in order for reconstructions to be as accurate as possible.
The Frauenkirche providing the backdrop for the 1933 Party Rally left and 1935.
The American Army by the time of Hitler's birthday, April 20, 1945 and the church today with its Männleinlaufen still ringing in noon.
The church in 1945 and 1946.
Opposite the Frauenkirche is a replica of the Schöner Brunnen (Beautiful Fountain) which dates from around 1385 and now stored in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum)
Hitler and Röhm beside the Schöner Brunnen in Victory of Faith; the photo on the right shows Leni Riefenstahl on the ground as she tries to capture a dramatic angle for the film.
The laws actually grew out of a debate over the economic effects of Nazi Party actions against Jews. It was decided that the party would cease such actions once the Reich had formulated a firm official policy against the Jews. The policy, embodied in the Nuremberg Laws, was hastily drawn up—so hastily that, because there was a shortage of regular stationery, some portions of the text of the laws were drafted on menu cards. The first major law, called the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, prohibited marriage as well as extramarital sexual intercourse between Jews and Germans. The law also barred the employment of German females under 45 years of age in Jewish households.
The second major law, the Reich Citizenship Law, summarily stripped Jews of German citizen- ship, introducing a new distinction between “Reich citizens” and “Reich nationals”—the Jewish Germans to be included in the latter category.
The Nuremberg Laws codified what had been the general but unofficial measures taken against Jews in Germany to 1935.
Further reading: Burrin, Philippe. Nazi Anti-Semitism: From Prejudice to the Holocaust. New York: New Press, 2005; Hecht, Ingeborg. Invisible Walls: A German Fam- ily Under the Nuremberg Laws. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 1985.
The Jews' Sow, an example of antisemitic propaganda used by the authorities to ostracise the Jewish minority and still allowed to adorn the church. In 2003 Wolfram Kastner sprayed the slogan 'Judensau' (Jewish Pig) on the church façade to protest the continuing display of this obscenity and to prompt the church to place a sign explaining the meaning of the sculpture.
This example is from the cathedral at Regensburg which has a plaque that reads euphemistically:
The sculpture should be regarded as a witness in stone to a bygone era and should be seen in connection to its time; It is repugnant for the viewer of today in its anti-Jewish expression.
Footage from inside the church itself
Memorial stone at Spital Bridge commemorating the destruction of Nuremberg's main synagogue located on Hans Sachs Platz. It was destroyed on August 10 1938, two months before Reichskristallnacht.
Albrecht Dürer Haus
During the Nazi era and today
Postcards of the Albrecht Dürer House in Nuremberg regularly portrayed the structure festooned in swastika flags, but the postcards of the Goethe House presented a building seemingly untouched by the passage of time. All in all, the Goethe sites conveyed an image of Goethe and an interpretation of his life and work that was not overtly Nazified. The visitors who arrived by the thousands thus experienced the house and the museum just as visitors had done for decades.Semmens (75) Seeing Hitler's Germany: Tourism in the Third Reich
Dürerplatz
Pellerhaus
SS Barracks
Julius Streicher's Gauhaus
The Gauhaus in flames in this U.S. Army Signal Corps photograph on the left taken on 27 April 1945. The Reich eagle is visible through the smoke.
Oct. 1, 1946: Day 218, and last, of the Nuremberg trial. Julius Streicher hearing the charges against him again recited before being found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging.Streicher was the founder and publisher of the extremely crude and vulgar Der Stürmer 'newspaper', and his publishing firm also produced three anti-Semitic books for children, including one of the most widespread pieces of propaganda, the 1938 Der Giftpilz (The Poison Mushroom), which purported to warn about insidious dangers Jews posed by using the metaphor of an attractive yet deadly mushroom. After the war, he was convicted of crimes against humanity and executed. Controversially so, for his execution went against the idea of freedom of speech, Streicher not having been involved in waging or planning war.
Nuremberg trials court building
The site of the Nuremberg war crimes trials. It is still a working court building, so tourist hours are limited to weekends. It was here that the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg was convened pursuant to the London Agreement of August 8, 1945, which included a charter, signed by representatives from Britain, the US, the USSR, and the provisional government of France, for a military tribunal to try major Axis war criminals on four possible counts: crimes against peace (the planning, instigation, and waging of wars of aggression in violation of international treaties and agreements), crimes against humanity (exterminations, deportations, and genocide), war crimes (violations of the accepted laws and international conventions of war), and conspiracy to commit any or all of the criminal acts listed in the first three counts. As these offences had no particular or specific geographic location. Subsequently, 19 other nations accepted the tribunal provisions of the agreement.
The tribunal was made up of a member (and an alternate) selected by each of the four principal signatory countries. The first session was convened under the presidency of General I. T. Nikitchenko on October 18, 1945, in Berlin when 24 former Nazi leaders were charged with war crimes, and various groups (including the Gestapo) were charged as being criminal in character. After this first session, all others, beginning on November 20, 1945, were held in Nuremberg under the presidency of Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence, the British member.
The Fränkischer Hof had originally mostly accommodated the press during Party Rallies.
This Nazi shield with its swastika somewhat intact was reinstalled in the front of this hotel, having originally come from the Fränkischer Hof shown below which shows it and the three other shields high above the entrance.
One of the largest air raid shelters during the war, holding 678 people; part now used by organisation to simulate blindness. The photo on the extreme right shows an example of an air-tight door used in Nuremberg air raid shelters.
The Nazi eagle still adorns the main administrative building for the railway.
Nearby is the Monument at Essenweinstrasse, serving as a reminder of the destruction of another synagogue during Reichkristallnacht.:
Images of the destruction
Pellerhaus
SS Barracks
The SS-Barracks, referred to by the Nazis as the "Gateway to the Rally Grounds", was built by the architect Franz Ruff and erected between 1937 and 1939. Consequently, it was first used during WWII and not during the years of the rallies. Its construction illustrates how the SS sought to be represented in Nuremberg by its own units right next to the rally grounds. During the war radio operators for the Waffen SS were trained here, some of whom took part in the siege of Leningrad. Through 1944-45, a small section of the building was used to provide accommodation for roughly an hundred prisoners from the Dachau and Flossenbürg concentration camps. After 1945 the barracks were occupied by the US Army. Today, after extensive alterations, the building houses the Federal Department for the Recognition of Foreign Refugees.
Headquarters of the Nazi Party in Nuremberg, and of Gauleiter Julius Streicher, Nazi leader of Franconia.
The name of a newspaper replaces the eagle and swastika on the façade whilst the back of the building is one of the only remaining examples of original Nazi relief, depicting National Socialism fighting the Weimar Republic and Jews. Compare with the relief on the right from Hitler's favourite sculptor, Arno Breker.
Nuremberg trials court building
The tribunal was made up of a member (and an alternate) selected by each of the four principal signatory countries. The first session was convened under the presidency of General I. T. Nikitchenko on October 18, 1945, in Berlin when 24 former Nazi leaders were charged with war crimes, and various groups (including the Gestapo) were charged as being criminal in character. After this first session, all others, beginning on November 20, 1945, were held in Nuremberg under the presidency of Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence, the British member.
Courtroom 600 in 1945 and today
The judges and the accused; the seats the latter sat on today. Defendants had the right to receive a copy of the indictment, to offer an explanation or defence, to be represented by legal counsel, and to confront and cross-examine all witnesses brought against them.
On the left is the bench where the accused sat. It was expanded during the trial, so it looks a bit smaller now. The video shows the October 17, 1946 U.S. Newsreel of the Nuremberg Trials Sentencing when, at the conclusion of 216 court sessions, the verdicts on 22 of the original 24 defendants were handed down. One defendant, Robert Ley, had committed suicide whilst in gaol, and the aged Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, the great German arms manufacturer, was judged mentally and physically unfit to stand trial. Of the 22 tried, three, Hjalmar Schacht, Franz von Papen, and Hans Fritzsche, were acquitted; four, Karl Dönitz, Baldur von Schirach, Albert Speer, and Konstantin von Neurath, were sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison; three, Rudolf Hess, Walther Funk, and Erich Raeder, were sentenced to life imprisonment; and 12 were sentenced to be hanged. Of these, ten—Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Alfred Rosenberg, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Keitel, and Arthur Seyss-Inquart—were executed on October 16, 1946. Martin Bormann was tried and condemned to death in absentia, and Hermann Göring committed suicide before sentence could be carried out.
The tribunal established certain enduring principles of international law, including those embodied in the rejection of the chief defences offered by the defendants. The tribunal rejected the contention that only a state, and not individuals, could be found guilty of war crimes. The court concluded that only by holding individuals to account for committing such crimes could international law be enforced. The tribunal also rejected the defence that the trial as well as its adjudication were ex post facto. All acts of which the defendants were found guilty, the tribunal held, had been universally regarded as criminal prior to World War II which created a precedent for subsequent war crimes trials relating to World War II as well as subsequent conflicts.
Further reading: Davidson, Eugene, ed. The Trial of the Germans: An Account of the Twenty-Two Defendants Before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997; Harris, Whitney R. Tyranny on Trial: The Trial of the Major German War Criminals at the End of the World War II at Nuremberg Germany 1945–1946. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1999; Marrus, Michael R. The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, 1945–46: A Documentary History. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1997; Persico, Joseph E. Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial. New York: Penguin, 1995.
The tribunal established certain enduring principles of international law, including those embodied in the rejection of the chief defences offered by the defendants. The tribunal rejected the contention that only a state, and not individuals, could be found guilty of war crimes. The court concluded that only by holding individuals to account for committing such crimes could international law be enforced. The tribunal also rejected the defence that the trial as well as its adjudication were ex post facto. All acts of which the defendants were found guilty, the tribunal held, had been universally regarded as criminal prior to World War II which created a precedent for subsequent war crimes trials relating to World War II as well as subsequent conflicts.
Further reading: Davidson, Eugene, ed. The Trial of the Germans: An Account of the Twenty-Two Defendants Before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997; Harris, Whitney R. Tyranny on Trial: The Trial of the Major German War Criminals at the End of the World War II at Nuremberg Germany 1945–1946. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1999; Marrus, Michael R. The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, 1945–46: A Documentary History. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1997; Persico, Joseph E. Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial. New York: Penguin, 1995.
Deutscher Hof
This is the hotel Hitler had always stayed at whilst in Nuremberg.
Arabella Sheraton Hotel (Fränkischer Hof)
Like a Roman emperor Hitler rode into this medieval town at sundown today past solid phalanxes of wildly cheering Nazis who packed the narrow streets that once saw Hans Sachs and the Meistersinger. Tens of thousands of Swastika flags blot out the Gothic beauties of the place, the faces of the old houses, the gabled roofs. The streets, hardly wider than alleys, are a sea of brown and black uniforms. I got my first glimpse of Hitler as he drove by our hotel, the Württemberger Hof, to his headquarters down the street at the Deutscher Hof, a favorite old hotel of his, which has been remodelled for him... Later I pushed my way into the lobby of the Deutscher Hof. I recognized Julius Streicher, whom they call here the Uncrowned Czar of Franconia. In Berlin he is known more as the number-one Jew-baiter and editor of the vulgar and pornographic anti-Semitic sheet the Stürmer. His head was shaved and this seemed to augment the sadism of his face. As he walked about, he brandished a short whip.William L. Shirer, Berlin Diary, September 4 1934 entry
This is the hotel Hitler had always stayed at whilst in Nuremberg.
Arabella Sheraton Hotel (Fränkischer Hof)
The Fränkischer Hof had originally mostly accommodated the press during Party Rallies.
Its various incarnations after the war.
High Bunker Worhd
Reichsbahndirektion
The Nazi eagle still adorns the main administrative building for the railway.
Nearby is the Monument at Essenweinstrasse, serving as a reminder of the destruction of another synagogue during Reichkristallnacht.:
Images of the destruction
Aufsessplatz
The photo on the left shows a crowd outside the Schocken department store in Nuremberg on October 11, 1925. During the Third Reich Salman Schocken was politically forced to sell his department stores to the Merkur AG through the policy of Aryanisation) After the war Schocken sold his regained share of the company (51%) to Helmut Horten GmbH, which later became part of Kaufhof and is currently owned by Metro.
Fürth
American war-criminal Henry Kissinger was born here on the first floor. His family had fled Nuremberg before Kristallnacht.
How Can Anyone Defend Kissinger Now? The Nixon tapes remind us what a vile creature Henry Kissinger is.
Zirndorf
No city in Bavaria has more historic buildings in proportion to its inhabitants than Fürth – over 2,000. This photograph of Schwabacher strasse on the left shows Jews forced to wear the yellow star. This is the town where Hitler's photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann was born on September 12, 1885. The other photos show Schwabacher strasse 1941 and today.
The Jewish museum with the Fuerth rathaus in the background. Jews were collected at the entrance.
The Stadttheater then and now
The railway station in 1940 and today
The Stadttheater then and now
The railway station in 1940 and today
How Can Anyone Defend Kissinger Now? The Nixon tapes remind us what a vile creature Henry Kissinger is.
Zirndorf
Just south of Fuerth, Adolf-Hitler-Platz then and now with the church in the background.
Erlangen
This town of 100,000 is located just over ten miles north of Nuremberg. There are two notable examples of reichsadlers still existing:
The Amtsgericht
The Amtsgericht
The reichsadler of the doorway of the Amtsgericht on Sieboltstraße 2
Friedrich-Rückert-Schule
The entrance to Friedrich-Rückert-Schule at the Ohmplatz with a detail of the shield (dated 1936) and one of the carvings adorning the side of the door
Around the corner over another doorway is this disturbing reminder... Schoolchildren is supporting the Nazi eagle, albeit without swastika. The school can be seen behind this monument celebrating the reunification of Germany on October 3, 1990
Wehrmachtunterkunftheim (later the American Monteith Barracks)
