Nuremburg

Synonymous with the Nazi political rallies of the 1930's, Nuremburg is a pretty Bavarian town saddled with the recent history. Of course, tourists now flock here because of its disreputable past, but even if you just spend all your time in the old town, it's time well spent indeed.

Shoot me now, I'm beginning to sound like a tourist brochure.

One thing you shouldn't do when you reach the main railway station is to walk out the wrong exit. One exit leads to the beautiful old town and all the charm that Nuremburg has to offer. The other leads to it's shopping district, great for supermarkets and groceries, not so hot on the charm.

However, to get to the Nazi sites, you have to jump on another train or a tram. The signs there are not particularly good, but the locals are friendly.

The particular local who helped us happened to have ponytails, makeup and a beard, but his advice was good, even if his application of rouge wasn't.

The best place to start your tour of Nuremburg Nazi sights is the documentation center. It gives a good overview of how the Nazis used Nuremburg to rally and consolidate support. Basically, they started by using Nuremburg as a meeting point, and then decided to build large, grandiose structures to impress and project their influence. All the sights left in Nuremburg are relics of that effort.

Of all the structures, only the Congress Hall and the Zeppelin Field clearly remain. The Congress Hall is now the Nazi Documentation Centre, a museum about the Nazis, with special attention to their activities in Nuremburg. Entrance comes with an audioguide, and is very well presented. The content itself is skewed unsurprisingly to the "We're ashamed of our past, he was a bad man" tune that the rest of Germany currently displays. It would have been interesting to know more of why hundreds of thousands were willing to be led by this man and his policies. The explaination given at the Documentation Centre was that he cultivated a cult around himself, who worshipped him as more than just a leader, and more as a superhuman.

But then, that's not so surprising in itself. Many world leaders take effort to project an image of themselves removed from reality. It's not unusual to reach a point where criticism of them becomes unthinkable, or is rebuked in the strongest terms.

I guess we should remember that even Prime Ministers are human and are prone to mistakes occasionally. The unfortunate thing is that their miistakes usually drag the whole country down with them.

Anyway... where was I? Yes, Hitler, very persuasive fellow he was. Managed to get hundreds of thousands of fellow Nazi party members to come to Nuremburg (then population 400,000), overrun the city, and then gather together in mass religious-like ceremonies.

Much like the World Cup, really.

After spending time at the Documentation Centre, you can now walk around the lake and see the old sites.

One of the things that really stand out are the GrossStrasse, a 2km 100m wide stretch of road, especially designed for parades. I can't think of any other type of road, just designed to accommodate such a thing, can you...?

The other sight is the Zeppelin Field, which is the site most associated with the Nazi Rallies. It's now slightly overgrown, but the size is still impressive, more than the World Cup stadium next to it.

After all that, that's all there is about Nuremburg. Nice town, shame about the Nazis.

Labels: germany, world cup