Day #16: Rothenburg/Nuremberg

On Day #16, I started out the day by walking the wall. Rothenburg still has most of its original fortifications still up with an inner rampart you can walk. But part of the town and its wall in World War II. What the city did to rebuild was issue a call for donations. In return for a certain amount, a person could "adopt" a portion of the wall and get a brick on the wall in their honor. It was cool to see the town from a different perspective in the early morning light and seeing the bricks with people's names and places from them.

After walking the wall, I spent the rest of my time spending my money. Rothenburg is the king of quaint German souveniers and I loaded up. One shop in particular, the Friese-Shop, was quite kind to me. In addition to the 10% discount I got for having a Rick Steves book, I got my 19% value added tax refunded for immediately shipping everything, which they were happy to do for me at cost. So, all told, it cost 10 euros to ship presents for my parents, brother, and sister back to America. Not bad.

After shopping, I caught a train to Nuremberg for a quick day trip. Unfortunately, the Nuremberg courtrooms were closed for renovation, but there was still plenty to occupy me. Nuremberg was a kind of spiritual headquarters for the Nazi Party. It is where they held their yearly party rallies up until they started World War II. Each rally had a theme theat the Nazis used to communicate their message through, i.e. one year was the Rally for Unity and Strength Ironically enough, the theme for that year was slated to be a Rally for Peace, but then they invaded Poland instead.

Nuremberg was thus accorded a special place in the world of Adolph Hitler. It was slated to be one of five Führer cities that were to showcase Nazism. But Nuremberg is the only place where they built anything and even then, not much was even started, much less completed. The city is still the best place to see Nazi architecture as envisioned by Hitler and his favorite architect, Albert Speer.

Original plans for Nuremburg included a stadium that would hold 400,000 spectators and several party buildings. What we have today is the fully completed Zeppelin grounds where Hitler delivered his fiery speeches to the party faithful and the half-built Congress Hall built to house meetings of party diginitaries.

It is in one wing of Congress Hall where Germany has built a museum, documenting Nuremberg's place in Nazi folklore and tracing Hitler's rise to power, including original footage from party rallies and the propoganda film, Triumph of the Will. It was quite well done and sobering to take in. I will try to come back and post some pictures when I get to.

Nazi architecture is austere and monolithic, designed to show all who is in power. The buildings were designed to last 1000 years, which is how long Hitler imagined his Third Reich would last. Interestingly enough, the background of the podium at the Zeppelin Field was designed to look like the Pergammon Altar I saw in Berlin.

After spending several hours at the museum and wandering around the Rally Ground complex, I caught a train to Munich and used the rest of the evening to settle into my hostel.